


Kaede Fox

by Staffen



Series: Kawarimonogatari [1]
Category: Bakemonogatari
Genre: F/M, Foxes, Gen, Japanese Mythology & Folklore, Kemonomimi, Lies, Money, Paranormal, Self-Loathing, Supernatural Elements, Suspense, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-11-12
Packaged: 2019-06-21 21:31:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 23,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15566742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Staffen/pseuds/Staffen
Summary: "The lesson you should learn by the end of this tale is, 'what makes us who we are is not something so easily defined as through mere appearances and words and origins.'"Kaiki Deishuu, lone ghostbuster, wandering paranormal specialist, finds himself stuck in the middle of an absurd missing persons case as his past catches up to him... or perhaps that's just how I want you to see it.(Pt.1 of Kawarimonogatari [Substitute Story]. Pt.2, Shiori Spider, out now!)





	1. 001

Identity is something which is dependent on perspective.

For an example of what I mean by this, consider _Vulpes vulpes,_ one of the most annoyingly widespread mammals on the planet. In English it’s commonly known as the “red fox.” Everywhere in the northern hemisphere, where humans live, there will also be foxes too. Their relationship is frequently one of hunter and hunted; the farmer and the menace to his livestock. Across the world we regard foxes as clever, intelligent, cunning, sly, wise -- all very generous ways to say they often earn their meals by outwitting humans. In Japan the fox is either a sly trickster or a divine messenger of the gods, or even both at once.

At the mention of a “red fox” the image which may come to your mind is that of a decidedly wild, limber little four-legged animal with short bodily fur and a puffy tail, a long and tapered canine snout, narrow eyes, a clever and curious disposition which always keeps its nose low to the ground…

And, ah yes, _red fur._

But you would be mistaken to assume this, for red foxes come in a wide variety of browns and blacks and greys, and sometimes even in white. In the first place, my eyes tell me the fur of your typical red fox is not even red, but rather a sort of brown or orange-brown.

Moreover, starting in the 1950’s a certain Russian geneticist by the name of Belyayev took it on himself to go about creating domesticated red foxes. Yes, the horrific act of genetic experimentation, a true staple of the science fiction pulp you often see littering bookstore shelves, realized in the pursuit of turning all things wild in the world cute and friendly. Thanks to this one man’s lifetime of work, today you can now find foxes on leashes. In the process of his experiment Belyayev’s foxes went from the traditional thin terrors of the chicken coop to fat, affectionate, fluffy-furred beings with more dog-like features than their forebears. Such is the wonder of genetics and human interference that domestication in and of itself produces a visible change and not just a behavioral change. Yet still, taxonomy has the nerve to call these animals red foxes like nothing has changed; no need to recategorize.

Humans seem to have an innate desire to tidily order and classify and categorize every minutiae of existence until the universe can eventually be fit into the pages of an encyclopedia. People are very fond of bookkeeping. We like when things fit into categories. We call our species _Homo sapiens_ , but since that simply isn’t specific enough for the needs of anthropologists it is deemed necessary to append an additional _sapiens_ onto the taxonomy to clarify that when we say “humans” we mean the anatomically, physiologically modern human: _Homo sapiens sapiens_. If you want to split hairs, however, or if you simply want to just irritate your zoologist friends, you can point out that you are a different sort of organism than the two organisms which came together to make you.

Yes, you are an _individual_ , unique in your own way from all the others around you who are so very uniquely, inhumanly, human. You see vestiges of your parents in your face but your parents shall appear more distantly related from your own child, should you choose to have one. Eventually, their child, if they should dare to have one, will appear distant from you, and even more so from your own parents, and further still from their parents. In this way speciation occurs, over the course of thousands and then millions of years. _“Speciation”_ too is our way of trying to put a word to the course of nature, to a phenomenon which exists independently of our own existence. In this way we foolish humans come to believe in the power of mechanisms, and we deceive ourselves into believing that these facets of nature have some driving force behind them; _a mind in the machine_. After all, we have personality, do we not? We exist, don’t we? We are unlike the earth and the worms which fill it, aren’t we?

The simple answer would be _“yes, you exist,”_ and _“yes, you are unique.”_ But you should be wary of anyone who would play to your nature as an ego-filled human being and tell you obvious things as though they are obscure truths, shrouded by mystery and superstition. In life there are no graceful foxes who will impart godly wisdom unto you; there are, however, foxes who will snatch away your pocketbook. I should know: I am one such being.

Hearing this, then, you will be surprised to learn that the person speaking to you right now is, in fact, a person who purports himself to be none other than Kaiki Deishū.

Indeed, though this news will come as a shock to you, I am in fact a fraud. The man known as Kaiki Deishū is a con-artist who spends his days peddling fake charms and making people believe that their mundane and ordinary problems are symptoms of supernatural and extraordinary afflictions.

All this time, you thought Kaiki Deishū was a good guy…

Once again you have been deceived.

Nice try.

Fool you once, shame on me. Fool you twice...

Anyway.

Foxes aside for the moment —

The other day, as I sat down to have my morning meal, I was reading through the headlines. Yes, it was under these circumstances that I came across the news about the latest celebrity death. It struck me as odd that the papers chose to announce this with the declaration, _“So-and-So dies at 78.”_ The same language as horse race results.

_“Potato Speed reaches 1st place.”_

I’m sure such a racehorse exists somewhere in the world.

People seem to view death as a sort of inverted race; it’s a race where those who finish last are considered impressive and anomalous, whereas those who are fastest to the finish-line are the subject of pity and remorse. Those who fall between the margins, meanwhile, are far easier to overlook. It takes special circumstances to finish either first or last.

With this in mind, I wanted to tell you a story about such participants in that race of life; the human race. The lesson you should learn by the end of this tale is, _“what makes us who we are is not something so easily defined as through mere appearances and words and origins.”_

It’s also the story of how the aforementioned breakfast, and the rest of the day thereafter, and the rest of the week after that, was ruined by the simple act of a café door opening.

And lastly, it’s a story about foxes — and although there is no such thing as fox racing (yet) I like to think this story shall nevertheless make for a good read.

It’s not an official story.

Rather, it’s a story told out of the need to fill a void.

You might call this story a substitute for the real thing.

I can make no guarantees to the veracity of its contents.

Such things are irrelevant to its quality anyway.

But as certainly as I exist, as assuredly as I have a heart, I can assure you it’s a story where the characters do not deserve the endings they get.

At the very least, I am sure I don’t deserve the ending I get.

… Just kidding.

This, too, is quite probably a lie.


	2. 002

“Oh my, could it be?”

This single nifty little phrase, this well-placed assembly of five words, this half-accidental uttering of a question, all too neatly trimmed and timed to be anything but the consequence of a well-planned attack, is singularly responsible for ruining my day — and possibly the rest of my life.

I did not respond.

I didn’t even risk looking up and confirming I was being spoken to.

But by the sound of their heels, I suspected I knew the speaker.

_ Click, click, click. _

Just keep drinking coffee and reading the paper, I concluded, and they’ll pass by to start talking with their acquaintance a few tables over.

But there was a problem: beyond the staff behind the counter, I was, at that given moment, the sole patron of this café.

_ Click, click, click. _

Why did it have to be here, of all places? 

Speaking candidly, as a writer you will at some point likely be told by a well-intentioned critic that writing café scenes is poison to your prose. They are overdone, it is said, especially when they serve the purpose of laying down the primary exposition for the rest of the plot.

But speaking from experience, I tend to be recognized far more frequently in fast food establishments and cafés than while I am walking down the street. Perhaps people simply are too busy keeping themselves moving to look closely at defining features. And when you are as busy as I am, the only room for conversation with non-clients is during meals. So conversing over lunch is far more convenient for me.

Not that this was convenient at all. 

_ Click, click, click. _

This situation was the farthest thing from convenient.

Firstly it was breakfast, not lunch. The caffeine had only started to kick in, which is probably why I did not see this encounter coming faster. People who rely on coffee to start their day do so with the full risk of being caught unawares in situations such as this.

The lesson to be learned here is that you should not rely on the influence of caffeine to start your day. This way, you are more alert when you wake and can make a clean getaway the moment you spot an irate former client.

_Click,_ _clack._

“I knew it — Kaiki Deishū!”

I had recognized the footsteps instantly.

Now I recognized the voice, too.

I looked up to the neatly dressed woman standing in front of my table: not quite hotshot business attire, but rather what you would expect from a desk worker, or at least someone whose line of work demanded respect — thin pleated pinstripe pants, a two-button black jacket over a white blouse, and simple stud earrings. This is a bureaucrat’s attire.

Saitomi Shiori. 

Saitomi - beginning with the same character for “bird” which is found in the kanji for “counterfeit,”  _ gan, _ where it rests over the character for shellfish... yes, the same character which comprises the first part of my surname. The second kanji of her name was the “ _ Fortune” _ in “ _ Seven Gods of Fortune, _ ” but that’s unimportant compared to the first kanji.

Two components of a fake.

The old bird over the clam.

“It’s been a while, Deishun.”

This very moment she was pecking at my shell.

…

How long did I intend to go on ignoring her pecking?

As long as possible, really, especially if she was going to start throwing childish pet names at me like I was her nephew.

“Madam, you must have me mistaken for someone else. I am—”

She cut me off with a laugh.  _ Nahaha. _

“No, I’m absolutely certain. I haven’t seen you in quite some time but you are someone I would never forget, not in a million years.”

How had she found me?

Had I been followed? Since when had I been under her surveillance? Moreover… how had she recognized me?

Ever since a certain incident, I’ve been maintaining a beard to disguise my jawline. I even chose to fill out an old prescription for eyeglasses, allowing me to better play the part of a sagely godfather. I can say with some pride that I have been successful in completely changing my appearance and demeanor with a few simple adjustments to my face. Or have I really been as successful as I thought, if she’s standing before me?

It hit me then: the reason she had recognized me…

My hair.

I had done nothing to change my hairstyle.

It’s a very distinct and wild look designed to suggest the unkempt style of a mystic, or even perhaps the horns of a devil.

Well, I say that I put so much thought and care into styling it only if I am questioned. The truth is I woke up one morning with my hair like this and decided to stick with it.

At least I’m fairly sure that’s how it happened. You’d be surprised what you can do with hair product.

Regardless, when I stopped and thought for a moment I realized there are any number of odd traits about my person which make it easy to single me out in a room full of people. My skin tone is one such additional detail - my eyes are another.

Good grief. 

I could feel my self-esteem sinking away. People must think I look like a ghost. When I look like this, I realize that it must not be hard at all to locate me.

“Of course I know it’s you, Deishun,” she insisted. “Nobody else could stomach such awful, off-brand coffee.”

…

I seriously struggle to believe this.

“... It’s been a while, Saitomi-san.”

Finally I mumbled back a proper response.

At the sound of my words, she breathed a giggle, tilted her head and pinched her cheek between her fingers, striking a pose like an idol. It was unbecoming of someone so conservatively dressed.

“Though it has been quite some time since we last met, and though I think that time apart has made it inevitable for both of us to have changed drastically from the people we once were, there’s no need for formalities between us, Deishun.”

Not a former client, this one.

A former classmate.

Do not think so lowly of me that a former classmate cannot be a character. I had other acquaintances in university besides the gloomy bunch of occult enthusiasts I met in Gaen’s little club. 

I had a life on campus, you know.

Well, I had heard some time ago that Saitomi had found employment in a cozy government office. Good for her, so I had thought. But now that I think about it, wasn’t it a job at the National Tax Agency? That bodes ill for the likes of me. I am not precisely aware what powers the NTA has to carry out its duties, but for someone who likes money, a taxation bureau is an archenemy.

“I had heard recently that you were assaulted by a minor in some little town a ways out from here, Deishun,” so said Saitomi as she helped herself to the seat across from me. “I am relieved to see you are well.”

That’s right. Last February, while I was doing some charity work…

You probably know the details already.

“You heard right, I’m afraid. It was a harrowing experience. I am the sort of person who, when harmed in such a way, would have sued for damages — not out of a sense of opportunism but rather out of necessity, you understand. But I realized right away the boy was sick and delirious, and so declined to even press charges. Ultimately I had to spend out of my own pocket for my medical bills.”

“Yes, indeed, you always were such a gallant man, Deishun. Although, I don’t know of many judges who would be willing to hear a lawsuit brought about by a man who’s been dead for years.”

_ Nishishi. _ Saitomi clutched her cheek again and made this grating, implicative laughing noise between her teeth.

So, she knows.

I’ve explained this before, but for the benefit of those of you who are joining us from the anime, there is a reason I wander as I do. To make a long story short, I was the recipient of my own life insurance policy. Thus I am no longer legally alive. 

You can read about that and more by supporting the official release.

Please do so. I’d rather not be subjected to a cease-and-desist.

For defrauding the insurance industry I received a sizable lump sum, the approximate value of a human life in exact change... all I had to do to earn it was see my name stricken from the registry. 

The money from that little adventure is all gone. It served me well. 

Of course, this does also make me a criminal.

Strictly speaking, I am an enemy of the state.

My enemy - is seated across from me, smiling at me, and teasing me.

Even I start to feel unnerved in such a situation.

“That’s exactly what I have come to expect from you, Deishun: your life was always one which walked a separate sort of path from mine. If I do say so, I always found your scheming so delightful. I’m glad to see that in the time we’ve been apart you’ve remained as sharp as ever.”

Something told me she was fishing for a response from me. This is the sort of situation where you would wear a bugged lapel pin to catch me admitting that I’m guilty of insurance fraud.

If she was recording this then she already had me responding to the name Kaiki Deishū, or close enough at least.

I wanted out of this conversation.

Out of this town, really.

“You flatter me, Saitomi. However, I’m afraid my morning is very busy, and if I stay any longer I’ll be late for a meeting with an important client...”

I made to stand up.

“Don’t move, Deishun.”

Hearing this was enough to give me pause.

“If you leave the building, my team will have you arrested before the door closes.”

She smiled up at me.

I seriously doubt an NTA auditor has the authority to direct the police.

It’s not as if I was actually afraid I’d be handcuffed the instant I exited the café, but I sat back down anyway.

“Honestly — you always threw bold lies around like they were a means to a cheap laugh,” I chided her so. “To tell such poor lies is to sour your reputation. If your goal is to climb the ranks of the bureaucracy, Saitomi, then you must be more careful with the jokes you spin. Imagine if you had threatened your boss in such a way… think of what the consequences might have been.”

_ Naha.  _ “Hearing you say this, Deishun… it warms my heart. Really, it does. Your chastising fills me with a deep sense of nostalgia. I’d forgotten how much I once wished for the master of deception himself to compliment my lies.”

“There’s an irony in hearing you, of all people, talk about deception as if you are unused to deceiving those around you.”

Oh no.

I’ve said something awful.

I specifically tailored my words to hurt this particular woman.

I intentionally said such things.

That’s really not the sort of man I am.

I really ought to be ashamed of myself.

I turned my head in embarrassment.

But Saitomi,

She only hissed out a little giggle in response.

_ Nishishi. _

“You say such hurtful things when you feel on edge, Deishun. It’s alright. I’m sure you didn’t mean it. I’m sorry I put you in a position where you felt you had to say something hurtful to defend yourself. Really, it was self-defense. But you know, you shouldn’t say something like that to someone.”

Please do not cover for me as if I’m a child without responsibility.

“I’m acting under the assumption there’s a reason you entered this establishment, and within an instant of opening the door had me targeted. You knew I was in here, and feigned surprise to try and catch my attention,” I told her. “If you’re not here to have me arrested, then, what is it you want? I know your goal here isn’t to just wax nostalgic.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Saitomi bow her head, still smiling. Her expression looked a lot more pitiful all of a sudden.

“You’re right, Deishun. The truth is, I came here to ask for your help with a personal matter.”

“I normally charge for something like that,” I said. “But given it’s from you, I’ll at least hear you out.”

Doing favors for others has scarcely ever ended well for me. It’s not that others necessarily want to take advantage of me, but it’s never as simple as it sounds in my experience. As it stood, right then and there, I was overcome with a certain sense that I had been in a similar situation not too long ago.

It’s almost as if the only way to get me to agree to anything is to trap me in a dining establishment.

I realized then, rather than pouting Saitomi had been rummaging through her purse.

From her personal effects she produced an envelope, which she handed to me. Inside was a few pages of handwritten notes: a casefile of sorts, about a child.

A child who had gone missing named Yoshinari Kaede…

_ Yoshi _ as in  _ “thought,” _ followed by  _ Nari _ as in  _ “to become.” _

And,

_ Kaede, _ starting with the kanji for  _ “value,” _ followed by  _ “rice field.” _

That alone made it a good name. 

Yes,

In my opinion, it was a good name.

“Alright, Saitomi...” I said.

“I’ll help however I can.”


	3. 003

I lied.

To be honest, I had no intention of risking a repeat of the events of last February, no matter how dire the situation was, no matter who asked me for a favor, no matter the circumstances surrounding my own person and my wellbeing.

Well, there is maybe one exception to my rule. There is one person I would put down whatever little operation I’ve set up to go help.

But,

That person is not Saitomi Shiori.

Last January, culminating in the 1st of February…

It had been a trying time for me.

Even if I liked this kid’s name.

Even if it would help me avoid trouble with the law.

It was too much.

I had already narrowly escaped the wrath of one so-called god. I would not willingly test the patience of potentially another such entity.

And so after we had wrapped up our talk, I promised Saitomi I would get to it straight away after I made a stop back at my hotel to collect my thoughts about the case. When I got to my hotel room, however, I immediately took a shower to wash my hair flat. Once I was out I packed my bags. My room was on the first floor — so I opened the window and placed them in the shrubbery outside. With that completed, I left my room, making sure to keep the door slightly ajar, and proceeded straight to the lobby. I told the clerk that I was checking out earlier than anticipated, and then I paid for my stay.

Assuming that Saitomi was watching me, she would likely be expecting me to make an exit through the entrance to the hotel. Therefore, I could not be seen leaving through the front. Once my checkout was complete, I calmly returned to my room, passed through the still-open door, went to the window, and passed through into the alley behind the hotel. From there I simply called a cab and took a roundabout path to the train station. The next train would arrive in thirty minutes. It didn’t matter where it went at that moment; all I knew was I needed to be away from this town before I wound up in police custody.

I’m sure Saitomi already understood by then what it really meant to come to me for help.

It meant that whatever situation she needed help with was hopeless.

People who come to me for help are people who are beyond hope. That has never changed — in the past, or the present.

And I, after all, am no savior. I am a fraud.

As I sat on the platform, I thought back to the conversation in the café.

Of course I had planned on not helping Saitomi with whatever it was she needed from the moment she sat down across from me. Yet as there was little else I could do to distract myself from the urgent sense of lingering danger I instinctively felt as I waited for the train, I couldn’t help reflecting on the strangeness of the case I’d just narrowly dodged.

As I had began to ask the cursory questions about just what she wanted me to do, Saitomi started to fidget. It struck me as if she were struggling to remember something that she should have been able to easily recall.

“Yoshinari Kaede is…”

Uncharacteristically, Saitomi paused.

“A friend’s child.”

I immediately picked up on her lack of specificity.

Not “A friend’s daughter.”

Nor “A friend’s son.”

“A friend’s child.”

When talking about a missing person you generally want to give as many details as possible. But beyond a cursory physical description, the notes in the envelope did not actually have much to say about Yoshinari Kaede at all. In particular, there was no mention of whether Yoshinari Kaede was a boy or a girl.

A single photo of a face was paperclipped to the main fact sheet. To me it looked like it was taken from a class picture, but it was cropped so that the uniform wasn’t visible. Nevertheless, the photo’s subject had dark red hair and brown eyes and a light smattering of freckles across their cheeks.

A single heavily circled scrawl under the photo read, “check records for birth certificate.”

You could say it was a really ambiguous face.

I wondered how this could possibly be. “A friend’s child,” Saitomi had just said, so presumably there was contact with the parents. You would think that a family friend would be worthy of hearing such tedious boasts as, “We just had our first son,” or, “We were trying for a boy, but we were still just as elated to have a girl…”

Still, the dearth of facts did not change what facts we did have.

Yoshinari Kaede was a middle school child who had gone missing about a week prior to my arrival in this town. Seeing as the day Saitomi barged in on my morning coffee was my second day here, this meant Yoshinari Kaede had been missing for a total of eight days. No, nine?

Even as an outsider, an unmarried man without experience or interest in parenthood, I still am more than a little disgusted that a couple could forget anything whatsoever about their child after so little time.

You often hear heartbreaking accounts of how memories slowly fade away; “I woke up one morning and realized I couldn’t remember my wife’s face.” This sort of thing is increasingly common the older one gets. But to forget such things about your child within mere days of their disappearance is truly baffling.

As appalling as this case of parental neglect would be, however, it is why Saitomi Shiori, with whom I had gone to school — who had been versed in myth through her association with me and a certain occult club — had reached the conclusion an apparition was involved.

It seems there was some sort of fight between Yoshinari Kaede and their parents. Having failed to make their family see their reasoning on whatever subject had sparked the argument, Kaede had blown through the front door and dashed down the street, quite literally running away from home. It would seem that Yoshinari Kaede, a soon-to-be graduate from middle school, was something of an athlete.

The father and mother, naïvely believing their offspring would return home of their own accord, chose to take this rebellion in and of itself as an opportunity for chastisement. A while after running out on their own, Yoshinari Kaede would either give up and return home of their own volition after realizing the futility of running from their problems, or be snatched by a diligent police officer who would see to it they were returned home safely, and the problem would be solved.

But Yoshinari Kaede did not return that evening. Stubbornly the parents went to bed with the expectation Kaede would come home during the night instead. When morning came, and Kaede was still not in their bed, nor curled up on the doorstep like a stray cat, nor even on the block — then the parents finally started to search. Then as their search brought no results, their worry turned to panic.

The authorities were called. But when an officer began requesting information for the missing person’s profile, the parents found themselves unable to recall Kaede’s gender. It seems the policeman had been just as cross with them as I would have been. He apparently left in a huff, but still filed the case once he returned to his station.

But the bureaucracy, designed around precise specificity, predictably struggled with this precise lack of specificity. The question was raised of whether or not there even was a person named Yoshinari Kaede. In the interest of making headway a few efforts were made to circumvent the Yoshinari family’s poor memory. But it was quickly found that Yoshinari Kaede’s school registry file was corrupted.

Cursing the capricious nature of the digital age, the police instead moved to inspect Yoshinari Kaede’s birth certificate. The parents readily consented and requested the appropriate documents from the municipal office — and in short order they were told that the physical file had been misplaced, and the digital copy was illegible. Even the parents’ photo albums were inspected, but what was found was a variety of images of Yoshinari Kaede in both male and female uniforms.

Yoshinari Kaede’s existence was undoubtable, but the disappearance of all verifiable records made the police fear that something far more nefarious was afoot than a mere runaway. In the eyes of the law the parents were guilty of negligence at best and complicit in some sort of kidnapping or trafficking conspiracy at worst.

“I got a call from Kaede-chan’s mother on the third day,” explained Saitomi. “By then she and her husband were desperate for someone to be able to say whether they had a son or a daughter. Just a few days before that — that is, before they went missing — I had been real bubbly thinking about how little Kaede-chan was doing, how they were growing up so fast. So when I was asked, ‘Do you remember if our child was a boy or a girl?’ I answered, ‘Of course!’ and then I immediately blanked as soon as I started to form an answer.”

It was as if something blocked that memory, so said Saitomi Shiori.

Something — Somehow —

_An apparition._

Something outside the realm of reason.

A phenomenon which should not exist.

“So having learned all of this, and having yourself forgotten the answer to the question you were asked, you believe that Yoshinari Kaede’s disappearance from record was not orchestrated by any mortal foul play — but rather, you have convinced yourself that it is the work of a spirit.”

I shook my head.

But Saitomi Shiori, she leaned in. “I’m certain of it. I came all the way out here to verify for myself that the paperwork couldn’t be found. This little town is too quiet and peaceful for it to be something as tacky as a kidnapping ring. The method of action is too far-reaching, and is too specific to be anything other than supernatural.”

“That’s a dangerous assumption to make,” I declared. “Reality is often stranger than fiction — you should realize this.”

“But Deishun, do you really think in this day and age it’s more likely that someone can quietly make a child slip through the cracks overnight across several different agencies and registries?”

“…Saitomi, I fear you have made a serious error in your thinking if you genuinely believe that’s less likely.”

Ghost stories and tales of supernatural beings are often ways of averting our eyes from ugly facets of reality.

It’s easier to accept that your child was spirited away by a whimsical god than it is to accept that your child has been snatched up by some predator.

Reality is cruel.

“Say, Deishun…”

“What.”

Please, stop calling me that.

“Do you not believe you can save Kaede?”

Perhaps it was too obvious what I was planning to do. Perhaps that’s why she asked me such a dismal question.

“…In the first place, Saitomi — what is it you think I can even do to solve this situation? You were better off calling Gaen. Seeing as you were her underclassman, I’m sure she would have given you a good rate.”

“Actually, I did.”

“Huh?”

I reflexively uttered such a stupid sound at her reply.

“Rather, Gaen Izuko called me when I began to suspect there was an apparition involved. It was Gaen-senpai who suggested you were fit for the job.”

That made my blood run cold.

Gaen Izuko had cut ties with me after I took a lump sum of 3 million yen from her as part of an agreement which I never fulfilled — an agreement which, much like with this one, I hadn’t been interested in fulfilling the very moment I accepted the money. To begin with, Gaen and I had never really seen eye to eye on much of anything. I had made sure that bridge was thoroughly burnt. Yet here she was, recommending me to people. Truth be told, that made me more nervous than the thought of being arrested for fraud.

Just what was that woman thinking?

Or rather… what was she planning?

“Besides the fact you’re the only person I know, standing right here in this city right now, who can freely interact with such beings, Deishun… there’s one thing you can do that nobody else can.”

“That is?...”

“You can trick Yoshinari Kaede into loving life.”

Thinking back on that conversation as I sat at the train platform, I couldn’t help but sigh.

Saitomi Shiori…

She has a very distorted ideal of me in her head, one which she stubbornly refuses to part with. When I think about it though, maybe it’s more that she idealizes me, rather than mistakes my identity. Maybe she sees through me. I wondered if she hadn’t already assumed I’d run away from the hotel. Following that, I wondered why she hadn’t already come chasing after me.

“Deishun — back in university,” Saitomi had again leaned in close to say this, “you fooled me into believing that there was something that made life worth living. By the time I figured out your deception, I was strong enough to stand on my own two feet and face reality without you. But it was because of you that any of this was possible. The me who sits before you is the very result of your fraud and your lies.”

“I see,” I said, warily. “So. This is the Kaiki Deishū in whom you believe.”

“Hey, Deishun…”

…

“Won’t you consider turning yourself in after all this is done?”

Foolishly, Saitomi Shiori asked me this.

“I haven’t any idea what you’re talking about.”

“If you turn yourself in once you’ve done this good deed, maybe —”

Saitomi was fidgeting again.

“— No, I’m sure they’ll be willing to loosen the fraud sentence. With my pull I’m sure I can get it reduced to a fine instead. And you know what, Deishun? Once that’s done I can get your deceased status lifted. I wouldn’t mind making the payments on the fine for you…”

“… And then I suppose you’ll ask me to room with you, and then before long I can be a stay-at-home spouse for you while you earn a tedious salary at a tedious desk job at a tedious bureau. Is that the tedious little fantasy you’ve concocted inside your head?”

She insisted. “Was it really so different between us in university, though? Maybe the roles were reversed, but…”

“You’ve made a mistake. When we were in school, you were nothing more than someone whose dire situation I exploited for my own benefit. I used you to make someone else jealous, to dismiss the teasing and nagging questions from friends about my relationship status with talk of a casual fling. Saitomi Shiori, to Kaiki Deishū you were nothing but a plaything.”

That is the sort of wretched character I am, I said.

Saitomi Shiori smiled at this, meekly nodding along to my words. It was such a painfully forced expression for the likes of her.

“… You’re right, Deishun. I was completely and totally fooled by you in university. You wouldn’t stoop so low as to genuinely love someone like me. After all: you only ever set your eyes on one person.”

That’s right. I roped her into such dismissive lies about having a girlfriend so that I could obscure my fanatical obsession for someone else. That’s the sort of person I am.

Kaiki Deishū is a fake.

I really am an awful man.

After that, we had quietly finished the conversation. I parted ways with Saitomi Shiori outside the café with the solemn promise that I would start immediately on the search for Yoshinari Kaede.

And now I sat waiting for the train out of town.

As for why Saitomi thought I was the fit for helping Yoshinari Kaede: I hadn’t really asked. But I imagine that Saitomi saw a lot of her own self in that kid. The Saitomi Shiori of my college years was a different creature from the Saitomi Shiori of the present; in those far-off days Saitomi had been far more demure, far more insecure, and simultaneously frightened of and desperate for a relationship built on trust. Socially, and as a consequence also academically, Saitomi had been on the verge of total despair. This is to say, Saitomi Shiori had experienced something relatable to what Yoshinari Kaede had probably been going through, leading up to this current state of affairs.

In this way Saitomi Shiori fulfilled the role of a good person.

But I could not receive her kindness. Hers was a presence I couldn’t accept. We are far too dissimilar. They say that opposites attract — well, in the case of Saitomi Shiori and Kaiki Deishū, opposites only push one-another further and further away.

Hm. Perhaps it’s not mutual pushing. Who’s doing the pushing, then?

“Hey, Mister, you look frustrated.”

Without turning my head, I looked to the ground beside me and spotted the hem of a white yukata, clashing awkwardly against a pair of running shoes. _Wonderful._ A child had now come to blight my solitude.

It was early Summer, about time for the local festivals, and the seasonal rain had let up over the last few days, so it was little surprise to see a kid running around in a kimono.

“I’m frustrated with my work.”

I said as much to humor them, without making eye contact.

“Well, that’s no good.”

They sat down beside me,

And began kicking the air with their feet.

_Swish, swish._

I cannot abide children.

I turned my head further aside in disgust.

“You know, Tanabata is coming up soon. You could always make a wish for success at the festival.”

“Wishing for something to happen won’t make that wish come true.”

_Keekee._

“You say it’s business but you talk like someone who’s having trouble with their love-life.”

Leave me alone.

What would a brat like you know about love, anyway?

At least I didn’t say these things aloud, this time.

“I haven’t been in love in a very long time,” I replied, in all honesty. “In fact, I’ve forgotten what it feels like to be in love. It’s not a loss I regret, either. If anything, it’s made it easier to live my life.”

That laugh again — _Keekeekee._

“That’s funny, Mister.”

_Swish, swish._

“You couldn’t possibly forget about an emotion like that could you? Or is that just an old person thing?”

“Mind your manners, you—”

I turned my head slightly, with the intent of giving this kid a stern glare.

_Swish._

Instead, I was only barely able to keep a straight face at what I saw:

Red running shoes,

_Swish, swish._

A white kimono,

_Swish, swish, swish._

A sun hat covering long, curled red hair and shielding brown eyes,

_Swish, swish._

And,

_Swish._

A big, puffy tail, matching the reddish-orange color of their hair, with a white tip, flapping back and forth daintily, independent of the rest of their limbs.

Yoshinari Kaede,

Or so I presumed.

The resemblance was exact.

I looked away again.

“— Not that it matters. I’m leaving soon anyway.”

Yoshinari Kaede continued wagging their tail, kicking the air, bobbing back and forth to an unheard rhythm while I sat gloomily to their side.

“Why do you want to leave now of all times?” they asked.

“It’s not good to do business here anymore. Besides…”

— _There’s no need for formalities between us, Deishun._

_Hey, Deishun —_

_Deishun Deishun Deishun Deishun Deishun Deishun Deishun Deishu_

“... There are certain people I’ll have no choice but to meet if I stay here, and I don’t want to meet them.”

“Is it because it’s awkward to see them?”

“That’s part of it, yes.”

One other particular part of it might be the awaiting prison sentence.

“If it’s a friend, though, shouldn’t you at least say goodbye first?”

“Saying ‘goodbye’ is no longer necessary in this digital age. If someone wishes to speak to me they can do so over the phone or through a text message.”

“But still, to hear you describe it, you’re leaving on bad terms. I don’t think a phone can bridge that gap. So why not just say ‘farewell’?”

“There is something I promised to do,” I admitted, “but I cannot do it. Well, there are several things I promised to do — none of which I want to do. The matter of ‘can’ and ‘cannot’ isn’t even on the table. But there are also things that this friend wants me to do which I certainly cannot do. The lesson for you here is that you cannot satisfy everyone by simply talking things through.”

Flimsy advice —

“Have you even tried, though?”

— So flimsy a fox can see through it.

“There’s no point. If you see things as matters of necessary or unnecessary effort, then this is altercation is not one which is necessary. It’s easier to run from this problem.”

 _Keekeekee_.

“You’re just like me, Mister!”

Without looking I knew Yoshinari Kaede was grinning. I could hear and feel it.

“I ran away from a problem, too,” they explained.

Then they asked me, “What’s your name?”

I answered, “If you’ll tell me yours then I shall tell you mine.”

Yoshinari Kaede shook their head. “That’s no good, though. I won’t give out my name to an adult who I don’t know. So I have to know who you are first!”

“… I see. Then, I am…”

This was information I needed to confirm, so of course…

“… Kaiki Deishū — ‘Kai,’ as in a seashell, followed by ‘Ki’, like a dead tree.”

A name is something powerful.

Your name is a potent item for barter.

“Your turn,” I said.

_Keekee._

“Kaiki-san,” parroted Yoshinari Kaede. “I like that name! It’s fun to say.”

They stood up.

Their tail also stood straight up.

“My name is…”

I looked over now.

“… Inari Kaede!”

I blinked.

“The kanji are… actually, I can’t remember the kanji right now.”

A name is something powerful.

Yes, I’ve learned something valuable here.

Really enlightening.

But in the distance, my train was coming.

Yoshinari— no, _Inari Kaede,_ before I could do anything Inari Kaede leapt past me and down onto the tracks with all the whimsical airs of a fox.

What would you have expected me to do in this situation?

Chasing a fox, grabbing it by its tail, is not as easy as you may believe. In the first place, the tail’s fur is as puffy as it is to trick you into overestimating its actual size.

But as the train appeared in the distance, Inari Kaede leapt further back on the tracks, past where my train would be arriving, and clear up onto the other platform.

“I’ll see you around, Kaiki-san! Don’t leave your friend waiting!”

And like that, they disappeared behind the arriving train.

I watched the train open up, and then I watched the passengers shuffle out onto the platform as the embarkees hurried onboard.

Then I watched the train depart from the station a couple minutes later.

Inari Kaede was gone, tail and hat and all—

Wait, no. That’s not right.

The hat had blown off when they leapt off the platform.

The winds from the train arriving and going had sent it to rest by my bench.

I picked it up, and then stood.

Right on time, too:

Up the stairs from the ticket booth came Saitomi Shiori.

“Deishun!” she sang. “I’m back!”

She revealed the contents of her hand, triumphantly, like a prize she had won at a festival game.

It was a loaded gun.

“And I have a gun!”

Why do you have a gun.

“Can’t let you be getting away this time, Deishun,” she assured me. “This is to show I’m serious!”

…

“… Saitomi Shiori. Saitomi. Convenient timing. I have determined the cause of Yoshinari Kaede’s disappearance.”

In much the same way as she had shown off her gun, I held up the abandoned sun hat.

“That’s— oh. That’s Kaede-chan’s hat.” Surprised, Saitomi asked, “Why do you have that hat, Deishun?”

There are many “why’s” I would like to ask.

But we haven’t the time for that.


	4. 004

To begin my hypothesis with its conclusion:

“Yoshinari Kaede has been afflicted by a fox.”

I declared as much.

I’m sorry to spoil all the mystery of this situation for you, but Yoshinari Kaede is in fact one and the same being as Inari Kaede — the fox-tailed, androgynous, maybe-pubescent kid who holds responsibility for trapping me in this town.

Incidentally, this town is known for a couple of things; one of which is its foxes. For whatever reason, a large number of wild red foxes like to congregate here. Some are docile enough that they will let strangers pet them if they can be bribed with gifts of food, and this is a great boon for the local tourism industry — but most people who actually live here have to regularly deal with their mischief. That is, people like me. Though as I have mentioned I have no home address, I can now sympathize with those who have to shoo away foxes from garbage receptacles.

“The circumstances are ripe for Yoshinari Kaede to have been bewitched by a fox,” I explained. “Indeed, all things considered I would say Yoshinari Kaede has a high affinity for foxes. Take, for instance, the name they gave me on the train platform: Inari Kaede. What is the first kanji of the name Yoshinari?”

“It’s ‘thought’,” said Saitomi Shiori, “normally read as ‘i’. Ah, and when read it like that, —”

“— By simply changing the reading, we get _I-nari_. Phonetically it’s identical to the name of the fox god of rice.”

Inari Ōkami.

Japan is a country full of gods. This country is really remarkable in that sense: seeing as the majority of the world population has deemed it more efficient to reduce the number of divine beings in any given pantheon closer to one, the persistence of Shintoism’s deific plurality despite the surrounding countryside’s technological integration is unique. Well, given the resurgence of other polytheistic movements elsewhere in the world, it isn’t quite unique. “Almost unique” is more appropriate.

… Maybe it would be more accurate to say that the current vogue is that it’s more efficient to reduce the divine beings of any particular brand of faith closer to none, rather than one. Frazer may have had the right of it: as technology has progressively improved, and we have come to achieve under our own power that which we once prayed to gods in hopes of achieving, people have begun to lose interest in the unnecessary gods they once besought for aid. It may be more appropriate to say the gods were cast aside.

But I digress.

Or — no. It’s not a digression.

Not a digression — because, of all the gods of Japan’s Shinto tradition, Inari Ōkami is perhaps the most powerful.

One of the most popular.

One of the most famous, in and out of Japan.

Something like a third of all shrines in the country are dedicated to Inari Ōkami. Now why is that?

Because Inari Ōkami is a patron god of all the things which allow Japan to survive and thrive in this cutthroat world. Yes, Inari Ōkami is patron of everything from agriculture to industry to even fertility; factory workers and farmers, merchants and housewives — all have offered up prayers to the fox god.

For a moment I thought I maybe had found a clue to unravelling the mystery of Yoshinari Kaede…

… But Inari Ōkami is also of dubious gender. You’re as likely to find Inari Ōkami in the form of a beautiful maiden as you are to find Inari Ōkami in the form of an old man hauling the day’s harvest.

As I pondered over this I spoke aloud, “Come to think of it, the priesthood doesn’t even like when people call Inari Ōkami a fox.”

“That’s true,” chimed Saitomi, as if she knew what I was thinking. “At times Inari Ōkami has appeared as a spider, or even a snake…"

A snake, huh.

Saitomi Shiori — do you actually realize what I’ve been through?

“In a way Inari Ōkami is a shapeshifting god. And shapeshifting and trickery are the expertise of foxes. So really, it doesn’t matter whether Inari Ōkami has a ‘true form’ or not; foxes are Inari Ōkami’s messengers, and Inari Ōkami is the patron of foxes.”

The trick with folklore is that no amount of priestly intervention can divert the course of popular belief. Whether the priests fret at the notion of Inari Ōkami as a fox or not, many people believe Inari Ōkami is a fox. The only thing which can revise, update or even upend a local tradition is the emergence of a more popular tradition.

Belief is a powerful sensation; people live and die by beliefs.

It’s unimaginably cruel to tell someone that they’ve been living a lie.

So I try not to go about ruining lives like that.

“But why was Yoshinari Kaede targeted by a shapeshifting god of foxes?”

Moreover,

What is Inari Kaede?

A fox god’s avatar? Or a living fox god?

Just what was Yoshinari Kaede? What has Yoshinari Kaede become?

And,

“Why do I have to wear handcuffs?”

I rattled my chains.

My left wrist had been handcuffed by Saitomi to the same bench on which I sat, situated on a street corner, beside the shelter of a bus stop.

_Nishishi._

Yes, regrettably, it seems Saitomi Shiori saw this as a necessary measure to keep me in place. I had assured her of my resolve to help with the case of Yoshinari Kaede, but...

“It’s because I have to make sure you stick around, Deishun!”

Saitomi Shiori believes in Kaiki Deishū.

She believes in the Kaiki Deishū who will take the first opportunity to escape. Therefore, at that moment she concluded Kaiki Deishū must remain where she can see him.

“At any rate, Deishun, don’t you think it’s possible we’re getting ahead of ourselves by assuming that the god of foxes is involved with Yoshinari Kaede? The name Inari Kaede is not the same name as Inari Ōkami.”

That is true, I had to admit as much.

But I can’t help but feel as if giving your name as “Inari Kaede” is meant to evoke the name of the god.

Now then, Saitomi — let me go, please.

“What about this situation leads us to conclude that Inari Ōkami is involved? Is it as simple as the fact we cannot determine Kaede-chan’s gender? If that’s it, then what is there about this case that suggests divinity? If operating under the alias ‘Inari Kaede’ is intended to blasphemously bring to mind Inari Ōkami, why not blaspheme further and call yourself Kaede Ōkami?”

Another fair point, I conceded.

Please, uncuff me now.

“Here’s what I think, Deishun...”

Uncuff me.

“I think that Yoshinari Kaede is alluding to their nature having shifted in some way to align with Inari Ōkami. We’ve already noted that the name ‘Yoshinari’ can be read as _‘Inari’,_ but we have yet to consider that the _Nari_ in the name Yoshinari is written with the kanji in the word, _‘become’._ It’s the same kanji found in the phrase, _‘entering into Nirvana’._ ”

Really, —

“By entering into their current state of ambiguity, by creating this obscured identity, maybe Yoshinari Kaede has achieved a sort of self-defined Nirvana. I think that, just as we had focused in on how the name _‘Yoshinari’_ created an affinity for foxes, maybe the truth behind the mystery of Inari Kaede lies within the name Inari Kaede.”

I yanked the chain taut.

— Uncuff me.

That’s what my expression in that moment said.

“Hm?”

Pulled from her reverie, Saitomi finally gave a thought to my plight.

The plight she had inflicted on me.

“Oh! I’m afraid I can’t take it off.”

I blinked.

Why?

“I borrowed those handcuffs but I didn’t bring a key. Truth be told, I didn’t think I would need one, but I fear you left me with no choice…”

A droplet of water landed smack on the tip of her nose. We both looked up: as the day had progressed from morning to afternoon, the sky had darkened.

Consequently, it was beginning to rain.

It was beginning to rain, and she had locked me to a bench outside of the bus shelter.

“O-oh,” sputtered Saitomi, “this is a problem!”

“Indeed it is. I’d rather not be waterlogged, Saitomi. If I am out in the wet for too long I am liable to catch a cold. I still need to find a new hotel. How will you resolve this situation?”

Saitomi laughed nervously, almost playfully. I could tell she was putting great thought into how she would answer.

Then she clapped her hands together.

“I’ll have to go fetch some spare keys from the police box where I borrowed those cuffs.”

She first hopped, then skipped, and then finally broke into a run down the street, ducking for cover from the rain under the buildings on this side of the street, waving as she went.

“Try not to go anywhere before I’m back!” she called to me.

As if I could go anywhere like this.

I itched at my beard with my free hand.

Then, when she was gone from sight and I could no longer hear her footsteps, I reached over with that same free hand, my right hand, and undid the lock of the handcuffs.

I did so with a paperclip from her little casefile on Yoshinari Kaede.

They sprung open, releasing my hand from the bench.

Don’t think too lowly of me for knowing how to do this. I assure you, it’s a little trick I picked up in college. Probably. Anyway, my luggage was on the opposite side of the bench, kept out of my reach while I was chained to this end. I picked them up and took them under the bus shelter while I plotted my next move.

As I was beginning to check the bus schedule on my phone, I received a call; a call from a number I did not recognize. I chose to answer.

Before I could say anything, before I could even think of anything to say to greet this person whose number I did not recognize, I was instead greeted by a voice I did recognize.

Regrettably, the voice said, “Hello, Deishū! It’s me, Gaen.”


	5. 005

“This is quite a surprise, Deishū.”

That’s my line.

How this woman can say that without a hint of irony is beyond me.

“It really is quite the surprise. Really, it is. Really, imagine my complete and absolute surprise to learn that you were pretending to occupy my role, Deishū — you, my underclassman, acting in my place, pretending to have the expertise necessary to diagnose an oddity of this sort.”

“It sounds as if you are already intimately aware of the details of this anomaly, Gaen-senpai—”

“No, no, Deishū. There shall be no honorifics between us, I should think! After all, I already told you once: I am no longer your senpai. You have forfeited the right to refer to me as such.”

You sold that right for 3 million yen, Deishū.

How could I forget? That money helped me recover from the mauling I received as a reward for fixing your mess, Gaen.

“Of course, I do appreciate the cute gesture you have offered by presenting me with the prime opportunity to retort, _‘Of course I am aware of the details of this anomaly already,’_ so I will go ahead and say so: I am indeed already aware of every fine detail of this mystery, Deishū. Of course I know. After all, there is nothing I don’t know…”

This is precisely why I could never stand talking to you.

“I know everything.”

This smug attitude; the thin veneer of sisterly, eternal youthfulness to cover over the boundless condescension of one whose omniscience is unassailable by empirical testing…

The devastating power to look directly at me and see through me.

For someone who ekes out a living on the broken backs of lies and ruses, there is no greater terror, no more devastating a foe than the person sitting among the enraptured crowd, the one who offers up only a knowing smile and a confident stare as if to declare, “I see through what you’re doing, but go ahead and keep trying to convince me.”

If the state is my enemy, then Gaen is my archnemesis.

“Before you have a chance to ask, Deishū — I am aware it has been pressing urgently on your mind since this morning. Don’t worry. At the moment I have no intentions of punishing you for the money you stole from me this last January.”

At the moment?...

Get ready, she warned.

“So then! Let Gaen teach you a little lesson about apparitions, Deishū. Rather, most of the pertinent details I’m about to tell you are things that you should already know — I should hope you know about them. That would at least mean you paid attention back in school. Now, Deishū… you have talked about the mystery of Yoshinari Kaede as if it is a kidnapping case. You seem very convinced that Yoshinari Kaede has fallen victim to a predatory spirit even in spite of dear, sweet Shiori-chan’s efforts to suggest otherwise. But the thing is, I think you are letting your past experience cloud your judgement.”

As this phone call carried on, the bus arrived.

And then the bus summarily left.

“People are not mere victims to circumstance. It’s because there are people at all that we have entities such as these; simpleminded people who do not understand the world around them, limited and fragile people who cannot see the contents of a box without opening its lid and thereby changing the nature of those contents, people who imagine what lies behind a locked door — they are all responsible for the existence of apparitions. Apparitions which murder, apparitions which pester, apparitions which help and apparitions which accost people in the process of helping are an inevitable consequence of the gaps in our conscience. Just as the smith who was slain using the weapon he forged was responsible for crafting his own demise, so too are people the architects of the very curses from which they suffer.”

“So by closely reading the fine print in this way you can get by telling people there are no ‘victims’ on technicality.”

Gaen laughed at this.

She laughed at this like a playground attendant watching a child.

“Just so. On that same technicality, Deishū, you are not guilty for defrauding families and leaving them financially destitute, because they made the conscious decision to give you their hard-earned money to help put their minds at ease. Last February, when Sengoku Nadeko deliberately let herself be fooled by your lies about her prospective future, she did so despite knowing she is not likely to find any fame or fortune as a manga author in this world. And for my part, I allowed you to take that sum of 3 million yen knowing that you would refuse to keep your word.”

…

“Even precious Saitomi Shiori was so kind as to play along with your attempts to impress my big sister Tooe. Good for you, Deishū — one as pitiful as you is truly surrounded by such wonderful, charitable peers.”

I did not respond. There was no point in responding.

She already had her satisfaction.

“My point is thus: in your rush to describe Yoshinari Kaede as a victim, you haven’t considered that perhaps Yoshinari Kaede is not a victim at all. You haven’t considered that Yoshinari Kaede intentionally subjected themselves to their current state of being. If you think about the information you’ve already collected by this point, isn’t it true that they ran out by their own accord? It’s also true that an argument is not a one-sided affair — they intentionally defied their parents, intentionally escalated the situation, and intentionally opened the door and with their own two feet ran. Have you considered that this course of events is the path Yoshinari Kaede chose, Deishū?”

“Are you suggesting that Yoshinari Kaede wished to become a fox? Even if Yoshinari Kaede wished to become a fox, how is it they succeeded when other imaginative people can wish to become plants without ever seeing that become reality?”

Though, really — to wish to become a plant would take a very unimaginative mind. Yes, I’m sure it would take someone less than clever.

Perhaps that’s why they failed, whoever they are.

“It may not be the case that Yoshinari Kaede wished specifically to become a fox. Nor am I even saying this current status is necessarily their end-goal. But I certainly am suggesting that Yoshinari Kaede’s current state is the result of their desires; the selfsame desires which drove them out of their parents’ home over a week ago.”

She added, “When a person wanders off the beaten path and fatally stumbles upon a bear, we often make the mistake of just saying they were attacked by a bear. But had they not chosen to step off the path they would never have intruded on that bear. So is it not true that they took a preventable action, and the bear simply reacted in kind?”

“That’s entirely a possibility, Gaen. It is possible that is the truth. But children make mistakes all the time. Childhood is a learning period, after all.”

“Just so! Though for some people childhood does not end at a specific age. Some humans take a truly excruciating amount of time to mature, and end up continuing to receive lessons well into their lifespans.”

It’s too obvious of a jab. I ignored it.

“But some humans grow up very quickly. Consider that maybe Yoshinari Kaede was one such person. Perhaps they didn’t have any choice but to grow up quickly. But they made a decision which brought about this conundrum, and this anomaly which surrounds their identity.”

“There are many things you are not telling me Gaen.”

And I must live with the fact she will always refuse to explain.

“If you would be willing to answer one question — I have been very curious about what makes me the most qualified person to handle this problem.”

“In other words, what you want to ask me is why you have to do the work. Well, it’s not as if Yozuru would be appropriate here. After all, not only would her presence be completely excessive, but her specialty is living immortals.”

I suppose it’s a given that Kagenui Yozuru’s talents are in the pursuit and destruction of immortal apparitions. I don’t believe for a second that rescuing someone is impossible for her, let alone difficult, but I suppose she is better off doing some important job elsewhere.

And somehow, I get the feeling having her be present for this situation would just make matters worse.

“Moreover, I believe that you have already been told by Shiori-chan why you are the appropriate fit. And also… I needed to make sure you did something to pay me back for January. And it had to be a particularly excruciating job. So that is why I have you here.”

She giggled.

Like a little girl.

“And now, Deishū, I have a question of my own for you: What do you think is going on here?”

How should I know? I’ve been barely able to even think about it without someone interrupting me.

“Better yet, let me break that question down into multiple, more direct questions. Why did Yoshinari Kaede run away from home?”

“… There are plenty of reasons why a kid would run from home. My only concern is making sure that they return home safe and sound.”

I said as much, but really, I didn’t have the first idea of how to answer.

Gaen laughed again. “No answer is still a wrong answer. But I do think you know why — it’s something you aren’t considering, perhaps even something you don’t want to consider. Next question: why the change of name?”

This time I answered with more conviction. “The name ‘Inari Kaede’ aligns closer with foxes than ‘Yoshinari Kaede’. Therefore I think the name has to do with the change of nature.”

The rain outside the shelter was starting to let up.

“Close this time! Maybe it does have something to do with the change into a fox, maybe it doesn’t, but your reasoning is missing the bigger picture. So, wrong again.”

If the audience at home would like to phone in a suggestion, please do so. Today’s contestant is not doing so well.

“Two more questions. The answer to both is one and the same, so I shall ask both at once. I know you can do it, Deishū. Why is it that Saitomi Shiori sympathizes so strongly with Yoshinari Kaede’s situation that she’s willing to come out all this way from her job as a bureaucrat to help look for them? What about Yoshinari Kaede is so relatable that Saitomi Shiori believes with all her heart that Kaiki Deishū is the perfect choice for the job?”

Why is —

What is —

— Saitomi Shiori.

_“You can trick Yoshinari Kaede into loving life.”_

I really didn’t want to know the answer.

And then,

“I’m sorry, but time’s up!”

— Said Gaen Izuko.

I felt like I’d been woken up by an alarm clock.

“I hope you’ll be able to find the answers to these questions, and all the other questions revolving around this case. Try not to disappoint me, Deishū!”

Unbelievable…

“Oh, and one last hint: what are the ways people become apparitions? That’s it! Bye-bye!”

And like that, she hung up.

It was tempting to smash my SIM card, but I knew that would only make things more difficult for me. I’d already racked up an ugly tally of broken cards and phones over the last year or so.

Besides… it wouldn’t help to get away from her. She would find out my new number straight away.

But on the other hand, she would at least not have my number in her recent calls list anymore…

The rain had let up about the same time our call ended. While I stood there holding my phone, back facing up, fingers digging at the edge of the cover, I could hear the sound of someone skipping in the puddles.

I looked up to see the child who had once been Yoshinari Kaede, playing in the water.

Inari Kaede, playing in the rainwater, in the middle of the street, tail wagging, not a care in the world, not an ounce of concern for the danger in which they were putting themselves.


	6. 006

Being the responsible adult, I looked either way before stepping out into the street. Inari Kaede either did not pay me any mind or did not see or hear me at all. I extended my arm out to grab their tail…

And then I realized — it was not a tail I was grabbing towards.

It was two tails.

Two fox tails of reddish fur, both tipped with a spot of white. I hesitated for a moment then. Had I not noticed this before, at the train station?

No. I was certain there had only been one.

Most interesting, I thought. Then I resumed reaching towards them.

But the moment my hand began to close, the moment my fingers touched the red fur, Inari Kaede yelped, and leapt away.

“Ah! Kaiki-san!” they exclaimed, turning around. “It’s a surprise to see you here again!”

I can’t help but feel I’m being followed, frankly.

“Truly, it’s a surprise. It seems we run into one-another everywhere I go.”

They laughed at this.

“It’s really quite surprising, yes! To have met this morning and yet already see each-other again is quite a coincidence. It’s as if we share a fate.”

I assure you, that is not something you should celebrate.

I pointed across the street, back to the bus shelter.

“Let’s get back to the sidewalk. It’s dangerous here.”

 _Kekeke._ “Maybe it’s dangerous for you, Kaiki-san, but I’ll be fine. I’m fast enough!”

“Is that so…”

I tried to keep my nerves in check as I looked down the street.

I had to do something about this brat.

“Well,” I shoved my hands into my pockets, “if you won’t move, then I’ll simply have to stay in the street as well.”

_Eh?_

They made a face at me.

“If you are safe here, then so am I,” I assured them. “I may look like an old man but I am, in fact, quite nimble. I was something of an athlete when I was younger.”

They offered up a weak smile and a half-hearted giggle.

Indeed, I was being humored by a skeptical little fox, as if what I had just claimed was somehow more ridiculous than what I saw with my own two eyes.

“Is that so… well! I believe you, Kaiki-san!”

And so, you see, with the half-sincere support of this fox-kid,

I stood there,

In the middle of the street,

Watching this child skipping and splashing.

But it felt to me like they weren’t so much frolicking anymore as putting on the appearance of play.

Well, it’s not like that lane was heavily trafficked for the moment.

“Say, Inari…”

I struggled with how to ask this.

“I hope I am not being terribly rude by asking this, but I was curious. What… are you?”

“I’m a fox!”

Thusly did Inari Kaede reply.

A car went by at that moment.

I must have looked like an idiot.

I certainly felt like one.

“Why, yes, I can see that,” said I. “But what I meant to ask is, if you’ll pardon my bluntness — would you say you are a boy, or would you say you are a girl?”

This time, Inari Kaede paused, standing in the middle of the water.

“I would definitely say… I’m a fox.”

I was even less impressed by this answer.

“Most people don’t really care either way when they see a cute animal, right? They think, ‘what a cute animal!’ and then they offer it food, pet it, take pictures of it, and when they go home they tell all their friends about it and they go to bed content that they got to see such cuteness in their life. And in time they forget. But the animal goes on living, doesn’t it?”

I’m sure it does, until that animal ends up on the side of the road.

A parent’s worst nightmare.

To my ears, it sounded as if —

As if Inari Kaede had forsaken the tethers of human identity.

“Then, do you not consider yourself to be a human, Inari?”

“Not anymore, no. I think I’m a little above that now.”

The traffic back-and-forth had begun to pick up. For a brief moment, we were surrounded by cars.

A former human,

Who forsook humanity,

And became more than human.

Hm.

I’ve heard something like that before.

I’m sure I know what comes to your mind when I say that. But that’s not it. Something different.

But where have I heard of this?...

Another car passed us by, breaking me from my thoughts and splashing water in our direction. Inari Kaede merely laughed.

That was the point I decided it was best to get out of the road.

But how to lure them across as well?...

“I’m afraid that was a little too close of a call for me, Inari. I’m going to go sit down over at the bus shelter. Will you please come sit with me?”

“I’m fine still! It’s nice to be able to be outdoors without the rain, after all.”

“I see…”

As I moved to sit down, I remembered my luggage. It occurred to me then that there was one card I could play.

“Actually, I wanted to return something to you, Inari. When we first met at the train station you left your sunhat behind.”

Inari Kaede reached up, as if to check my claim.

… They almost seemed genuinely surprised to have not been wearing a hat for the last several hours.

Their ears perked up,

Straight up.

Furry ears, exactly like a fox’s.

“Oh!” they exclaimed. “Thank you, then!”

Without a thought, they began to move towards the bus shelter. But at that same moment, the lull in traffic which had allowed me to cross had passed, and the street was filled once again with cars.

Despite this, little Kaede began to move — even I am left with no choice but to express shock. This is, after all, a child we are talking about here, endangering themselves. Yet again, as an adult I feel a certain sense of obligation towards their wellbeing.

But there was Inari Kaede, dancing and weaving between vehicles, practically skipping with a practiced grace and expertise more akin to a squirrel than a fox.

Life and death, it seemed, were a game to them.

When they had finished their crossing, unscathed, untouched and definitively unmaimed, Inari Kaede held out their arms as if to introduce themselves anew, or perhaps to as if to say, “look at what I just did!”

They seemed to be eager for applause. But I couldn’t simply congratulate them for doing something so reckless as crossing a busy street.

Inari Kaede acts less like a middle-schooler and more like a grade-schooler. I wondered to myself if Yoshinari Kaede was the same way.

And so, having no more appropriate reaction to the spectacle in mind, I opened up one of my suitcases and pulled the hat out.

At first I offered it, but as Inari Kaede reached out to accept I retracted my arm. “Sit by me for a while and let us talk,” I insisted.

This way I could spare myself some embarrassment while still gathering information.

After giving my offer a thought, Inari Kaede nodded. They sat beside me on the bench. I gave them their hat back, and they immediately put it on to cover their fox-ears.

“If you don’t mind me asking you something again, Inari—”

“Actually, haven’t you asked me enough already, Kaiki-san?” Without paying a care to my own words, Inari Kaede leaned towards me and continued, “I want to learn a little about you for a change!”

I had no interest in divulging the details of my life to the kid of a friend’s friend. But the circumstances left me with little choice; Gaen had focused in on the transformation from Yoshinari Kaede into Inari Kaede, and that metamorphosis clearly had something to do with Yoshinari Kaede’s gender. Perhaps the mere act of finding out the truth would serve to dispel the anomaly. At the very least, it stood to reason that I could potentially gain an important piece of information if I only just played along…

Having rationalized out my answer, I crossed my legs and arms and braced myself for the back-and-forth this conversation was inevitably heading towards. “Alright,” I said, “I’ll answer a question for every question you answer.”

Inari Kaede’s tails began to wag.

_Keke,_

“Yay!” they cheered. “First question: where are you from?”

An obvious first question.

“Gifu. My parents eloped to the city because my mother could not acquire her father’s approval to marry a foreigner.”

… Rest assured, I have no intent to answer with so much as a shred of honesty.

It was a thing I just said without even thinking; a lie crafted unconsciously — habitually, even. But still, I find it interesting how I drummed up the little details; they say the best lies are those which are partly truthful, however obscure that truth may be.

Well, I suppose it counts if you lift the truth from other sources.

At any rate, it seemed to have been a sufficient answer.

“Oh! So you’re a mixed person!” Inari Kaede nodded in understanding. “I see! That’s very interesting!”

“Yes it is. But when I was younger and it was more obvious, I was frequently mocked for it. To this day my heritage is not a comfortable subject for me. So I would definitely appreciate if you did not make a big deal of it.”

“You don’t think you should be proud of what you are?”

I eyed my interrogator. My initial thought was to reprimand them for not waiting their turn, but there was something else in that reaction…

“For some people, facing the reality of one’s nature can be painful,” I replied. “Just because it is who you are does not necessarily mean it is something you want to be; just because it is what you are, just because it is ‘true’ that you are such a way, does not make it acceptable to yourself. Such people exist with this thought looming in their minds.”

I thought I saw a shred of shame cross Inari Kaede’s demeanor.

“Just so,” they said, “I guess you’re right, Kaiki-san. People who are like that — must exist, after all.”

Inari Kaede had asked me two questions before I could ask my own first question.

But with this, I had been compensated for the additional question.

So, Yoshinari Kaede was one such person… yes, this reaction was as good as any answer to any question I might have asked.

I looked up and away from them and declared, “My turn.”

It was then I heard Inari Kaede kicking their feet in the air, like they did at the train station.

They could certainly bounce back quickly.

“I get the impression you ran away from home,” I mused. “Why?”

Naturally, I asked this question knowing that there was an obvious and evasive answer: “Because I had an argument with my family.”

While you may be inclined to think this was an obvious misstep on my part, I can assure you that I did so quite strategically. By this point it’s clear that something most troubling lurks in the heart of Yoshinari Kaede — of Inari Kaede. It’s clear that this something is at the epicenter of the argument they had at home, over a week ago. Therefore, I reasoned, they would be inclined to earnestly open up about their worries when given the first possible out for their repressed emotions.

Then,

Inari Kaede replied,

“Because I had an argument with my family.”

…

And like that, my question was artfully wasted.

I rested my cheek against my hand and closed my eyes.

Really — maybe this is what I get for answering their questions with lies:

The truth, albeit in selective handfuls.

Had I been more direct, I risked being too obvious.

Nobody likes a snoop, and what I’m doing right now — it’s certainly snooping.

So I suppose I had no real choice but to take this angle.

“My turn again!” cheered Kaede. “What’s your favorite thing in the whole world?”

Lying didn’t get me very far.

And besides — if one lies too hard, too frequently about basic things, then they risk being tangled in their own web of lies.

So I spoke with honesty when I said, “I like money. All things involving money are a prime hobby for me; I enjoy making money, and then spending that money to enrich someone else’s life. “

Inari Kaede nodded and said, “That’s really interesting! Really, it’s interesting. But when you say that you like making money and then spending money, isn’t it the case someone else loses money in the process? Somewhere out there is someone else who might have received; and that prospect is taken from them.”

Again you ask a question before your turn…

What’s the point of rules?

Besides — I’ve heard this particular question many times before.

“To give, and to take — rather, to take from others, and be taken from; that’s the nature of the world.”

Inari Kaede listened intently to my words.

I promise you, there isn’t a bee involved this time.

“When a wild animal is hungry, it goes out into the wilderness and fetches its prey… whether it digs up the roots of a plant or a rabbit’s den, it matters not. The overall sum of suffering in the world remains static. Human beings differ in that they have deceived themselves into an elaborate system where they trade currency for meals in place of lives.”

I had already begun to put on my gloves. It wasn’t a necessary thing to do so, but Inari Kaede had not noticed it anyway.

“Money is something in which we place value; value we derive from the collective struggles of those who have labored across the centuries to instill in it the worth they need to survive. We justify money with statements like, ‘I earned this through my own sweat and tears’, yet at the end of the day it is not with money that a house is built, or a meal cooked. Currency is the promise of toil which frees mankind from the shackles of nature. Money is transcendent; money is even divine. It’s why shrines accept money in their donation boxes — money born from the cycle of worldly karma, the very essence of that karma...”

The trap was set.

I pointed my finger at Inari Kaede,

The fox who sat transfixed by my words…

I pointed directly at their brow.

Even if I can’t ascertain the absolute nature of this oddity, I can still change that nature with some measure of suggestion. And that way I can make the fox something easier to deal with.

Kaede closed their eyes.

It was working.

When next they opened their eyes, perhaps they would finally be Yoshinari Kaede once more.

… Or so I thought.

“I understand now,” declared Inari Kaede. “I believe I understand how you think, Kaiki-san — Kaiki Deishū-san. I think I can understand why you lie the way you do.”

I froze.

Rather, I was stunned.

The air around me seemed at once aflame and yet cold as winter.

“Life, wealth — all things material are built on suffering. We place value in that which can only exist because someone, somewhere, sometime has suffered; value, not only born of suffering, but which in turn causes yet greater suffering. To exist is itself suffering; we live, helplessly drowning in such karma, again and again in perpetuity.”

My spell was in ruins…

All that effort spent for a complete disaster.

As I watched, Inari Kaede — seemed to bristle with energy. Anger, or outrage, or simply determination, I do not fully know.

They turned from me, and stood up.

“That is—”

I stood as well, as if I had intended to stop them, but the moment I stood I decided against any further action.

Inari Kaede’s tails — flitted and writhed in agitation.

They took off their hat, revealing how their ears stood on end.

Even with their back turned to me I could feel the hot-cold sense of terror radiate from them.

“I remember how Auntie Shiori spoke of the man she loved; at once with admiration and anguish and disgust and despair… he is one who is wise to the ways of the world, but yet turns his nose up at that knowledge. Someone who relies on the power of the lies which tie people to reality… a man steeped in karma.”

They pointed to me. As if that motion had command over the clouds, the skies seemed to darken in that instance.

“Kaiki Deishū, your every breath bathes the world in karma. One such as you cannot be a Buddha; you are a sinner.”

The wind picked up, catching stray leaves.

“Sinner or not,” I declared, “we all live in that world of lies. Even the you who claims to be a fox lives wrapped in trickery. Unravelling that deception is precisely what I can do — it’s why Saitomi Shiori asked me to help you. We’re alike in that we live lies, therefore —”

“Alike!” they snapped. “You and I are nothing alike. At the very least, beneath all your falsehoods and half-truths there is a ‘you’, a ‘true you’, who can exist in this world. And as for me, I don’t even know what I am!

“You’re only partly right when you say that my present state of being is trickery. But this isn’t about ‘now’ and ‘then’ — I am simply living how I have always lived. Who I am has always been a lie. I am sick to death of lies. I decided it may ultimately be better to erase the matter altogether.”

“Is omission really any better than lying, Kaede?”

“Lies and truths are imposed on existence by those who need to grasp at the material world. But I’m beyond that now.”

A light, blinding bright, surrounded Inari Kaede.

I watched as their two tails —

— Became three.

Inari Kaede turned to me.

Eyes closed, mouth drawn in a thin smile…

The look on their face was, in a word, serene.

They donned their sunhat once more.

“Kaiki-san, rather than tangle with truth and lies, isn’t it divine to simply cease to be?”

The rain began again, and in a rush of wet leaves Inari Kaede was gone.

After a moment, maybe a minute or so, I decided to sit back down.

A stray, wet leaf had plastered itself to my cheek. I peeled it off.

The remnants of a fox’s glamour, I mused.

I’d learned something new, but it felt like there was now even more left unlearned.

Shortly after that,

“Deishun!”

I heard the jingle of keys.

Saitomi Shiori was sprinting down the street, soaked by the rain.

“Sorry it took so long, Deishun! I had to go find my contact from the department…”

She trailed off when she realized I was sitting under the shelter instead of on the bench.

I gave her an unimpressed look.

“The storm is getting worse,” I observed. “And I don’t have a hotel anymore. Furthermore, there have been new developments. Let’s focus on finding me a new place to stay.”

“Oh. Well, I have a place in mind!”

And that would be?...


	7. 007

After that encounter, Shiori and I took a cab. She gave the driver a destination while I silently sat with my thoughts.

I didn’t even pay attention when she told them where we were going.

_The divinity of non-existence…_

What could have led a kid to such a dismal idea?

That’s the sort of sophistry you hear from a self-mummifying monk.

In any case, by this point it had become clear my work here was deadly serious. Yet, with the storms picking up I had no choice but to wait and plan out my next move. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that caution was wise; after my previous failure, I couldn’t just strike up casual conversation with Inari Kaede. The nature of our interactions was permanently changed — you could say, _damaged_.

_… Divinity in ceasing to exist._

In a word,

_Suicide._

Such a whimsical fantasy of self-termination was fitting, for a child;

Someone who doesn’t understand that life is something you can’t just pick up and throw away.

…

Children shouldn’t be giving up on life.

Identity, lies, the self… everyone has doubts about who they are as they approach adulthood. If you ask me, though, middle school is too early for that.

Yoshinari Kaede was driven to thoughts of death by something.

Inari Kaede had come into being thanks to these thoughts;

The urge to escape something inescapable had given rise to an entity which could escape; first and foremost, Inari Kaede is a reality-defying apparition conceived for the purpose of transcending the bonds of a reality which was unkind to Yoshinari Kaede. Never you mind that the process by which Inari Kaede defied reality — was by deleting that reality. No, that’s not right — rather, it _obscures_ what is real.

But what even is real? What is definitive and what is subjective about Yoshinari Kaede? Does such a thing even exist? Did it ever?

Inari Kaede certainly had their doubts.

Now, is that because something is preventing Yoshinari Kaede from taking definitive form, or is it that Yoshinari Kaede is undefinable?

Such thoughts filled my head as the taxi came to a stop.

Yes, my head was entrenched in the process of determining how to even approach this conundrum as we stepped into the empty hotel lobby.

Perhaps it is instead the case that Yoshinari Kaede had decided they wished to become undefinable?

Such was the thought on my mind while Saitomi Shiori led me down the hall, cheerily humming to herself.

There are those in the world who do not believe they can adequately fit into a two-part structure of gender.

However, they still exist; they are certainly still people. They are still _human_. You might even say they still have a gender, one which does not fit into the standard understanding thereof. Inari Kaede, however, presented themselves as a ‘fox’, rather than a human. Furthermore the neutrality, the ambiguity we have assigned them, is not a matter of conformity; it’s us ordinary humans patching a hole in our understanding.

Gender is an integral aspect of the human identity; it is the human being’s perceptual notion of sex traits. When we meet new people we automatically assign them to categories — that’s how we interact. Gender, ethnicity, class, clique… our social experience is a construction of assumptions like these. I myself take great advantage of such assumptions; all manner of liars and con-artists, magicians and actors and spies do so. These assumptions are powerful tools in the hands of one who stands upon a stage — but to one who wishes to go through life undisturbed, they are the most terrifying threat to existence.

Removing gender from the equation is not as straightforward as just pretending you don’t have a gender. The people around you will simply shove one onto you. Changing identity requires a change that goes beyond simple self-assertion; it necessitates altering the way human beings perceive and interact. To have done so requires manipulation.

Manipulation — such as a fox’s glamour.

Many are the stories of foxes living as humans with the help of such a spell. But just as many stories conclude with the fox revealed — as if the purpose of the story were to wag a finger and say, “no creature may change the fate into which it is born.”

… But really, who says that the fox who has successfully passed as a human has no right to go on living as such? Should the human who has lived under the pretense of humanity be unmasked as well?

With all their talk of lies, of living out lies in conflict of truth, I think Yoshinari Kaede perhaps related greatly to the perilous nature of the foxes. This all came about because Yoshinari Kaede determined their nature was that of a fox.

… A fox who lives among humans, yet wishes to do away with the trappings of humanity —

The way humans are; going beyond that…

This might be the key to understanding Inari Kaede.

A being which transcends human trappings —

 _—_ Post-human?

Trans-human?

I weighed the two phrases in my mind, but neither really felt adequate to describe Inari Kaede.

… Or could they describe Yoshinari Kaede?

What a headache.

No child should be having such heavy thoughts.

Besides, I must remember: it’s not like there’s no gender. It’s just that the fox is obscuring it.

As I remembered my base assumption, and having now completely failed to make progress, we arrived at the room.

Saitomi Shiori slid the room’s keycard into the door. She pushed her way through, cheering, “Ta-da!”

I dropped my luggage — not because I was necessarily tired. No, no, I dropped my luggage because I was stunned.

The suite was moodily lit and lasciviously decorated.

…

A bath, already drawn to capacity and bubbling, sat in the middle of the room.

…

The bed, partly sectioned off from the rest of the room by panels of frosted glass, was circular — no, it was definitely heart-shaped.

…

There were magazines strategically placed on the coffee tables and the bedsides. After giving them more than a cursory glance I realized they were catalogues — catalogues of costumes.

…

I looked at the wall beside the door: there was a panel with a timer counting down. 15:59, 15:58…

Saitomi Shiori slid her room card through the panel, and the timer changed from 15:58 to 23:59.

…

She grinned at me.

_Nishishi._

“Saitomi Shiori, you…” I paused to take a long, deep breath. “I trust there is some good reason you brought me to such… lodging.”

“Now, now, Deishun,” she tutted. “Of course there is! This is where I’ve been staying, silly!”

Staying multiple nights in a love hotel — now, to me, that seems awfully wasteful. Just what exactly is your salary, Saitomi?

My eyes went to the luggage case that was already sitting beside the bed,

Along with the catalogue of _special toys_ , open to a particular page.

… Well, all evidence suggested she’d been here a day or more.

“At least, I’ve been staying here since Gaen told me you’d be coming to town.”

“Indeed you have, Saitomi. But I must ask, for what purpose have you brought me here?”

“Well, you needed a place to stay, and there’s room for two!”

“That there most certainly is.”

In a room such as this, however, two is already claustrophobic.

There weren’t even any windows.

Saitomi sat on the sofa — that is, _the loveseat._ “Ah! To think I’ll be sharing a bed with Deishun once again — after so many years…”

I agreed to do no such thing.

“But Deishun… I’ll have you know I have my job to think about! I must put my work before pleasure.” She struck a pose, arching her back and casting her legs over the edge of the armrest. “And, to sleep with you, of all people… it’s rather like sleeping with the enemy, no?”

I maintain, nothing was said about anyone sleeping with anybody.

“Hm.” Now she clutched a handful of her hair and stared up at me. “Perhaps it’d be better to say that it is, in fact, sleeping with the enemy.”

To be clear, I was still standing in the doorway, well away from her.

“That would probably be more accurate,” I said. _But please stop pretending it’s anything besides a hypothetical._ “Still, Saitomi, you have not properly answered my question: Why am I here?”

“Well, to put it one way, I’m fulfilling the fanservice mandate for this particular story.”

A hand behind her head, another at her hip, she tried her level best give the effect of a model posing for a gravure shoot.

Please, Saitomi, do not drag me down to the lowly level of such a wretched harem protagonist as that punk Araragi.

_Nishishi._

And then, with a few taps of a touchscreen and a swipe of a card, our dinner was summarily ordered.

“But if I had to put it in a word, Deishun: gratitude.”

“Save your gratitude for when Yoshinari Kaede is returned home.”

“Deishun — I don’t mean just gratitude for what you’re doing now.”

A knock came at the door. A moment later, without a word spoken by whatever hotel attendant awaited on the other end, a number of trays were pushed into the room through the slot in the middle of the suite’s door. Saitomi had ordered a truly stupendous number of sweets.

That much has never changed since I’ve known her.

… I of course paid no attention to the discreet little black bundle that was delivered alongside our meals.

“I said it this morning, but I owe my life as it is now to you.”

I immediately replied, “And I recall saying this morning that I used you. I used you in a reprehensible way.”

“You did say such a thing, yes. And maybe that was the truth. Or maybe it was a lie. But whether it was said in honesty or not does not matter, I think. Is it relevant that our relationship was truly genuine? What about it made it ingenuine? In college, I was already filled with doubts about whether or not I was really someone special to you. But do you remember what you taught me, when I finally conveyed those doubts to you? You taught me that, for my life, it does not matter whether I am someone special to you. What matters is that you are someone special to me. So what, then, if you just were using me for your own gain? In a way, I was using you too; to grow stronger, to lean against you as I recovered from my own problems and doubts and neuroses. In that sense your selfishness, if it was truly selfishness — it saved me.”

When our dinner arrived, I had relented and sat down in the chair beside her.

But now I could not look her in the eye.

Neither of us were touching our food.

“If you are as evil as you say, Deishun, then you are the ultimate evil from which springs all good. The villainy you commit — the lies you tell —  rearrange the strings of fate, cutting ties and bundling threads to produce a better future. Karma is a funny thing like that.

“So when Kaede-chan calls you a sinner, I think they’re more right than they realize.”

“Perhaps. But it would seem that each time I try to play the hero, I end up making matters worse.”

“Just so. But the thing is, nobody knows what evil their deeds will unleash. The best of intentions can bring everything crashing down. But what matters in the end is that we live. We can make those decisions and reap our mistakes. As long as we live, we can try again — that’s what you taught me. And that’s what I think you can teach Kaede-chan as well.”

Finally, she sat up.

“So, Deishun, help yourself to the food. You have no reason to feel guilty or uncomfortable any longer about this situation. Or, perhaps… you’d rather help yourself to me?”

She winked at me.

But I, I ignored her, and started eating.

I ate.

And then I bathed, in the middle of the room, under a certain voyeur’s gaze.

And then I refused to watch that certain voyeur bathe in turn.

…

And then I went to bed.

And soon after that, this hopelessly enthusiastic pervert followed me under the covers as if inviting me to react — expecting me to react.

I rolled over and closed my eyes beside that over-eager, voyeuristic pervert.

There was, after all, only one bed.

Really,

Considering those circumstances, it can’t be helped —

It can’t be helped.

Can’t be

helped

…

 _“Can’t be helped,”_ huh.

I got out of bed and made my way to the toilet.

When I opened the door to the washroom, however, I was greeted by a neon-lit flight of stairs climbing up to a lone toilet at the top. The architecture of this establishment was baffling in its excess.

“… It can’t be helped.”

I sat down on the toilet seat and stared at the wall above the door.

It can’t be helped...

… If there’s a single phrase that personifies the nature of this country, it’s that one.

“We lost the war. It can’t be helped, so let’s rebuild and trade with the victors.”

Something like that.

Or,

“The economy isn’t doing great. In fact it’s awful. We have to slash benefits and double work hours. But it can’t be helped, so let’s keep working so we can still put food on the table.”

Or…

“I was passed over for promotion even though I have been in this department longer than anyone else. But it can’t be helped. I’ll just have to work even harder and maybe next time my miserable boss will consider at least giving me a raise.”

… Or even,

“The person I love died in a car crash. It can’t be helped, so I won’t grieve in public.”

Or perhaps,

“My partner and I are in love, but because we are the same sex the municipality won’t recognize our marriage. It can’t be helped, we can’t change the law, so we’ll just keep quiet about it.”

_It can’t be helped —_

“Things are the way they are for a reason.”

“You shouldn’t try to change the way the world works.”

“You should just bow your head and bear it like the rest of us.”

Oft do we spout such bitter nonsense when we hear grievances.

The message is clear.

We tell others that they don’t deserve to have happiness — because we ourselves are unhappy. But change would require effort. Change can be scary. So, everybody should just be equally miserable and stay that way.

But not everyone is equal in their misery. Some suffer worse than others. Some suffer over things which others take for granted. We struggle to sympathize with that which we do not understand; that which we have not experienced.

It is because of this collective acceptance of misery that people such as I can make a living. It is not that everyone accepts their lot in life; far from it. The acknowledgement of helplessness drives those who still have hope to desperation. There is no end to those who cling to hope; those who are desperate for change, and those who fear change. They’re all eager victims to whoever is willing to say what they want to hear.

I think Yoshinari Kaede is someone who was in want of change; someone for whom “It can’t be helped” had already taken on a sinister implication.

_“Who I am has always been a lie. I am sick to death of lies.”_

A fox. A wild animal. A creature whose gender does not matter. A wild animal which people just acknowledge and then turn to the next cute thing. Is that really the full measure of your self-worth, Kaede?

_— Deishun._

It can’t be helped that she calls me that. I gave up on chastising her for using that name long ago.

But sitting there on that toilet, I remembered something else.

_“It can’t be helped, Deishun. It can’t be helped that I’m this way, but the way they would react if they knew — it can’t be helped.”_

…

_“You can trick Yoshinari Kaede into loving life.”_

I see.

So.

That is why I can help.

I got up from the toilet and descended those glowing steps.

Saitomi Shiori had rolled over, faced away from my side of the bed.

But I was certain she was still awake.

Staring at her back, I asked,

“How long have you known?”

Saitomi sighed, but did not turn over.

“Whatever do you mean, Deishun?”

“Allow me to clarify. How long have you known about Yoshinari Kaede's gender dysphoria?”


	8. 008

I want to stop and take a moment to talk about Gaen.

Now, when I say Gaen, I do not mean Gaen Izuko, my former senpai.

Rather, I mean her sister: Gaen Tooe.

The elder Gaen sister —

My mentor.

The woman who devastated my being and changed me forever.

The woman who was closer to god than human…

… The god-like woman who, something like a decade ago, died in a car accident.

Thinking back, maybe it would be inappropriate to call her god-like. Gaen Tooe was someone who, I believe, did not value gods. I think it’s because they did not hold sway over her. She saw them for the empty vessels they are; filled by the desires of us mortals.

A god, Gaen Tooe was not.

She was a being of absolutes; one who ruled over absolutes.

She was a devil.

Of course, describing Gaen Tooe in mythical terms such as these benefits me. That is, by doing so I am elevating my memory of Gaen to the level of one who has borne witness to divinity.

I suppose I was her apostle, in a way.

One particular memory I have of her still remains fresh in my mind; as it will remain until the day I die. For my part I forget what it was I said, what lazy and audacious little lie prompted the response, but her reply haunts me nevertheless:

“Once a lie has been told, all truths are suspect,” She said.

Then she added,

“But if all words — both truths and lies — may be doubted, then what is the value of the truth which we doubt? Truth is something to which we cling out of weakness. Truth is as fleeting as the life which seeks it. The world will continue despite your facts and falsehoods.”

Do not convince yourself that deceit is more valuable than truth.

But do not be convinced that truth can be more valuable than a lie.

It is an understatement to say that Gaen Tooe is responsible for the Kaiki Deishū who exists today. It was from Gaen that I received my affinity for money. It was Gaen who taught me to be aloof of that which is valued for its transient nature. Gaen taught me to question the values on which I build my lies.

Ironically, by keeping her memory alive I am in fact contradicting that same lesson. Or perhaps that is what it seems to be at the surface; having lived with the grief of her passing for so many years, I find within the contradiction lies the lesson that some things simply never will be replaceable — that these things are what keep us bound to this world. These are the things which, for what it’s worth, make us human.

I miss her dearly.

I got to thinking about Gaen once more after what Saitomi said in her suite; that dismissive remark about me being the “ultimate evil from which springs all good.”

But from whence comes that evil?

I am the evil which sprung from Gaen.

Gaen is the ultimate existence from which sprung my evil.

The ultimate existence, neither good nor evil —

— Because good and evil are the consequence of that ultimate existence’s entropy.

Just as it is with truth and lies.

Walking my way through the case of Yoshinari Kaede, I cannot help but be reminded of my mentor — of Gaen.

It feels good to have these memories.

I wonder, how is Gaen’s daughter doing right now?

That girl who now bears her father’s name.

She’s a senior in high school this year, as I recall.

A rambunctious, troublesome, energetic youth; who has associated herself with some unpleasant former upperclassmen; who likes to run and play sports and gets involved in things in which she has no business getting involved.

She’s probably on her way to another collision with the supernatural.

If I do say so, she is truly her mother’s daughter.

I hope she can lead a better life than her mother’s — or a better life than mine, for that matter.

Yes… when I think about it, I realize even that upbeat girl has been living with the specter of her parents’ deaths. There was a hole torn in her being by the departure of her mother and father. The gap she had to overcome is unimaginable — even to me, one who pretends to think he can relate to at least half that gap’s measure.

The loss of loved ones is unbearably painful.

I wonder, who would mourn Yoshinari Kaede’s passing?

I think Saitomi Shiori would mourn, for one.

And I can’t rule out the parents, either.

And,

I think I would mourn, too.

Reminding someone who is suicidal that they would leave behind grieving loved ones scarcely ever suffices as a preventative measure.

But — to me, well, it’s just as much that I don’t want to see Saitomi cry as I don’t want to see this kid make a mistake.

I decided I had to resolve this crisis…

For Yoshinari Kaede’s sake; for Saitomi Shiori’s sake…

For the sake of Gaen’s memory.

I don’t want to experience that pain of loss again.

I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

You know, I have an awful track-record when it comes to helping people. I can’t make any guarantees things will go the way I anticipate them to go.

But I resolved that I had to try.

… Which is why, the next morning, I went up to this dreary little shrine atop a hill, just outside town, not even a five-minute drive from the park where I encountered Inari Kaede.

All along the way up the hill were trees and bushes and wild grass.

I could see foxes through the brush, peering out at me with their narrow eyes.

Saitomi had told me, “Kaede-chan liked to come here.”

I can’t help but think of Gaen whenever I am at a shrine.

A fox scampered across the grounds.

It stopped to look at us — at me — before it disappeared into the bushes.

You might ask yourself, “What manner of god is enshrined at such a location?” A fox, perhaps? Quite fitting, given the surroundings.

You would be wrong, however.

There is nothing enshrined here anymore.

It’s an empty shrine.

Whatever was once here, it is now gone.

I believe there had indeed previously been a fox god enshrined here.

It makes sense, given the surrounding area.

But regardless, at some point in the past couple of years the god had been removed.

Or maybe it had simply died? I can’t remember.

At the basin, I dipped the ladle into the water and cleansed my hands.

Staring at that empty shrine from across the yard, I thought back to the conversation I had the day before with Gaen -- that is, Gaen Izuko.

Overall the situation here is comparable to that which I encountered this past January: a quiet little town with an empty shrine; a missing child who had been rendered something more than human —

— And Gaen Izuko, looming in the background, pulling strings and moving people around.

What exactly was her angle here? That woman…

Was she once again trying to pass off a kid as a god?

The possibility was real.

But then, why would she involve me if she knew I’d throw a wrench in her plans? Much as I hate to admit it, perhaps she was just trying to help.

Of course, I realized by this point that Gaen Izuko had been trying to hint at the true nature of Yoshinari Kaede’s plight, pushing me towards the notion that it was voluntary; that it was Yoshinari Kaede’s desired course of action.

Yoshinari Kaede had wanted to change.

I can start to fill in the gaps a little.

There had been a fox god at this shrine up until a few years ago; Yoshinari Kaede had become a fox — Inari Kaede.

Just how long had they been dealing with this problem, I wonder?

Running up the hill to pray to the shapeshifting god for a change…

… Never receiving an answer to their prayers.

Well, on closer inspection, it turned out there was in fact one object of worship in the shrine: a statuette of the Buddha, modestly placed to the side of the shrine, as if as a modest substitute for the local fox god. I remembered instantly: at the bus stop, the conversation with Saitomi…

The _Nari_ in the name Yoshinari — it is the same kanji found in the word “ _become_ ”; the first character of, “ _reaching enlightenment._ ”

For Yoshinari Kaede, enlightenment must have at some point meant realizing their true self.

But for Inari Kaede, enlightenment meant ceasing to exist.

To cease to be caught between what is true and what is untrue.

What a wretched thing, to make a child doubt their validity.

If there was ever going to be a place to find Yoshinari Kaede, I wagered, it would be this shrine.

Where, then, was Yoshinari Kaede? I had come here in the hopes of finding them. Yet the shrine was empty; the grounds were unoccupied.

From the looks of it, nobody had been here in quite some time.

This place was Yoshinari Kaede’s refuge from an unkind world… or was it? If this had really been such an important place to them, why would a being obsessed with enlightenment turn their nose up at the opportunity to make a den here?

I looked to Saitomi. “You are certain that Yoshinari Kaede frequented this shrine?”

She nodded, but she did not seem certain.

“... Well, we all knew they came here. But nobody ever followed them up to the shrine. Someone who is troubled — it just didn’t feel right to disturb them.”

In other words, this may not have been Yoshinari Kaede’s actual destination.

Nobody really knew for certain where they went during their melancholies.

And if you think about it like that, then, what is there beyond here? Where do you arrive if you continue past the shrine?

There is no other place; beyond the edge of the shrine’s grounds is the tree line, marking the edge of the forest.

No other place —

— Besides the forest.

The forest where the foxes live.

And sure enough, as I considered this, a fox emerged from the brush.

The fox from before, perhaps?

It stopped midway and stared at me. Once I looked back over at it, the fox hopped back into the bushes flicking its tail…

As if to dare me to follow it.

I stepped forward.

It was then that I realized: beyond the bushes there was a path formed from flattened grass leading away from the shrine, into the forest.

The fox was sitting in the middle, looking at me expectantly.

I turned back: Saitomi Shiori was watching what I was doing.

“I’m going to go take a look,” I called to her. “Stay here.”

And then I entered into the woods.

As I approached along the trail, the fox dashed away.

By this point I should note: previously I have stated this town is known for a couple of things — one of which is its foxes…

Well, now I should explain the other thing.

This town is also known for its forest.

This forest is a popular place for those who wish to end their lives.

It’s a quiet forest, save the occasional dash of red fur crossing your path; a totally different environment from the town below.

It’s almost like crossing into another world.

I was being watched as I walked —

Watched by beady little eyes.

Above me, the sky was cloudy and gray. It would rain at some point.

Still, I had to press on.

Inari Kaede had invited me into the foxes’ domain.

Further along the path I went, deeper into the woods; and the deeper I went, the quieter the forest became.

The land was dead still when I came upon a rocky little incline. The path went around it, and so did I.

Here in the depths of the woods the foxes were much more bold. They sat along the sides of the path like furry little spectators, watching me pass without moving. They followed me closely.

Such it was that by the time I came to the end of the path I was surrounded by foxes.

Before me was a shallow little cave, nestled among trees and grass and mossy rocks.

I could not quite make out what was inside — but at the entrance to the cave sat a child in a sunhat and a white kimono, curled up, hugging their legs to their chest. All around them were foxes, like little guardians, watching me approach.

All at once the foxes fled, as though to permit me audience.

Once again, I was alone with Inari Kaede.

“Kaiki-san,” said Inari Kaede. “It’s nice to see you again.”

They stood up, removing the sunhat.

For the first time I realized it was inappropriate to describe what Inari Kaede wore as a yukata; it had been wrapped right-over-left.

Their red running shoes were missing now.

And,

Behind Inari Kaede,

Waving back and forth:

Eight tails, red like Kaede’s hair and tipped with snow-white.


	9. 009

Imagine, if you will, waking up one day, looking in the mirror and seeing that the person reflecting back at you is someone who is not you.

Imagine walking the streets and being regarded in the eyes of passersby as someone you are not.

Imagine your parents addressing you by a name which is not your own.

… Imagine looking at class photos and seeing, where you should be standing, there is someone who is not you.

Imagine being told that you aren’t dressing correctly;

That you are talking strangely…

Imagine your every instinct of how you should go about your day being met with confusion, incredulity, suspicion and even disdain.

Imagine those instincts telling you that you’re not living correctly.

What sort of reaction would this evoke from you? I wonder.

What kinds of feelings would it elicit to become so plainly prescient of the weight of others’ expectations — their scrutiny?

Perhaps it might be enough to make one sick.

As the disagreement of who you are deepens between you and everyone around you, between even you and yourself, perhaps you might find yourself retreating; evading conflict by trying to play along, or isolating yourself from any situation wherein looms the threat of confrontation. Then comes the guilt of failing to stand up for yourself; bringing with it self-loathing for your piteous state.

Thus sets in paranoia.

This is what it means to be dysphoric of one’s gender; the process by which one’s identity tears them apart.

_“How long have you known?”_

That night, Saitomi had hesitated to answer my question. Yet, her silence, her refusal to even face me — it was sufficient to tell me I had been right on the mark.

Really, in hindsight I suppose I should have realized it from the moment Inari Kaede spoke to me about living lies. Was Saitomi’s silence in that moment disappointment, or was she unnerved by the question itself? I’m unsure.

“About a year.”

She answered this way, after a time.

“I was visiting town when Kaede asked me for advice. It was such a forgettable little question, but I’ll never forget that they asked.”

What was it that Yoshinari Kaede asked?

Saitomi never told me.

I had an idea of what it was though.

I knew that Inari Kaede would ask me the same question.

Call it intuition and leave it at that.

And so,

The forest…

I found myself confronting Inari Kaede for the final time.

They looked tired.

I could swear I saw _something_ further behind them, in the cave.

Cautiously, I asked, “What am I going to find in there?”

Inari Kaede shrugged.

“At this point, I don’t know — not that it matters anymore.”

I remembered something then.

Gaen Izuko’s hint —

— _What are the ways people become apparitions?_

Up to this point I had operated under the initial hypothesis that this hinted towards the notion that Yoshinari Kaede’s transformation into Inari Kaede had meant they attained a sort of godhead. With the common usage of the kanji for _Nari_ , and its close association to divinity, I had only thought my hypothesis strengthened.

But achieving enlightenment is not the only way one becomes an apparition.

For the overwhelming majority of such beings which once took on corporeal form, becoming something otherworldly…

… Such a process requires death.

Yoshinari Kaede may in fact no longer be among the living.

That was the possibility which now entered my thoughts.

And as Gaen had pointed out as well, Kagenui Yozuru would have been inappropriate to resolve this situation… because she specializes in _living_ immortals.

Gaen — the depths of cruelty you have exhibited with this prank…

Words cannot adequately describe the feelings roused in the pit of my stomach at that moment.

Perhaps right now you are conjuring up a charming little picture of how I will resolve this situation:

You might be thinking, “He’ll strike a gallant pose and lecture this kid about the value of a fake, and that will be that. The day will be saved.”

You thought that might be what makes me the perfect hero.

However, even I am keenly aware of the effect such careless philosophizing can have on someone in this mental state.

I might as well be reaffirming their self-hate.

Really, in that moment — all I had left was a single thought:

_I don’t have the first idea of how to fix this._

Saitomi was mistaken.

I can’t help Yoshinari Kaede.

And I certainly can’t help Inari Kaede.

I can’t help anyone.

“None of it matters,” repeated Inari Kaede. “Still, even though it is pointless, it is nice that you came to see me one final time, Kaiki-san.”

I said nothing.

I had nothing to say.

Their eight tails swayed gently, like tree branches caught in the wind.

Such a beautiful sight — it’s rare to witness such a beautiful sight.

Inari Kaede nodded their head approvingly. “This is good. All is perfect. I am content and affirmed.”

“This has always been my little spot in the woods,” said Kaede. “I came here to get away from the rest of the world. And you know what? When I came here this time, I realized something. You know what that was?”

I did not answer.

“I realized, this world is empty!”

_Keekeekee._

They looked so overjoyed to share this revelation.

Then they repeated, “The world is empty.”

They nodded.

“Yes,” said Inari Kaede, “absolutely, the world is empty — devoid of purpose. And it’s filled with all these miserable little people, stuck up in the pretense that life has a reason — that they have a mandate to go about their daily lives, breathing the air and eating food and in doing so depriving someone, somewhere, of those same wants and needs. Whenever someone feels threatened they talk about their rights, and they get passionate about their sense of self-worth. But you know what? It’s all just an act; we will into existence this idea that we deserve to go on existing. Everyone can be happy if they just pretend that all is right with the world, as long as you get to be happy in this fleeting moment. But nothing is right with this world. The delusion disgusts me.”

Inari Kaede looked up at the sky, peering through the trees to catch a glimpse of the clouds.

“I’m so tired of being talked to like a meddlesome pest. You know, all my problems seem so trivial… at least, I was told they were, anyway. Who said that though? — I can’t remember. If I have to think about it, it must have been quite a lot of people. ‘You shouldn’t make a fuss, because everyone has it just as bad as you’ — something like that.

“So I thought — maybe it would be nice to just stop living. I had this idea: ‘What if I had never existed?’ I thought about it, and kept thinking about it, and I didn’t stop thinking about it. Eventually, I started to be comfortable with it — with that nothingness which, before Kaede’s existence, filled the space where Kaede would come to exist… the same nothingness which will be waiting for when Kaede stops existing.”

They twirled around, giggling merrily.

“After a while, I came back out of the cave again, and when I saw my reflection in the rainwater, I had become like this!”

Their ears twitched and their tails fluttered.

“Isn’t it nice, to be able to accept futility?”

I spoke up:

“There’s nothing futile about living. In the first place, what would it even matter that existence is preceded and then followed by nothingness? That does not change the fact that we exist. That existence is undeniable; to try and assume otherwise is a dive into the absurd. But what we make of existence is ours to decide. Nothing is born into this world with purpose — people find their purpose in life.”

 _Keekee!_ “Yes, we do exist, Kaiki-san! At last we can find common ground. After all, I’ve come to understand that all of humanity is like me: we’re all nothing more than animals living under false pretenses.”

It’s like they weren’t even really listening to me —

— or rather, like I wasn’t worth hearing.

“Purpose… purpose, purpose, purpose. We all act like we’re something we’re not… as if we’re somehow better than the foxes rummaging through the trash; as if we have a right to this earth. But I understand now that it’s all lies, Kaiki-san. And in time, the truth catches up with us all. We’re all destined to go back to nothingness.”

Inari Kaede’s tails began to shimmer and shine.

Like a halo, the light enwreathed Inari Kaede, blinding me. I shielded my eyes in my elbow.

It was a warm light. Yet as it washed over me I felt terribly cold.

When I lowered my arm

I counted nine tails,

Flowing like rays of sunlight behind Inari Kaede.

The

Light —

“The sole purpose of life is to die,” declared Inari Kaede.

— So blindingly bright.

It was like the sun stood before me.

I could no longer make out Inari Kaede’s face.

In fact, it almost seemed as if there was no face there at all.

Inari Kaede, the persona which had emerged from Yoshinari Kaede’s despair, had become something intangible.

Something I did not deserve to see…

What happens when a fox gains nine tails?

Such a fox becomes a god in its own right.

Each tail Inari Kaede gained was another step towards another epiphany to justify their resolve…

Working backwards, creating a thesis to match a conclusion.

“Was your desire all along to become a god? To have a god’s power?”

“Not at all.”

Inari Kaede sighed.

“Really, what I want has not changed since months before I left home. But it’s something unattainable. Oh well — ‘it can’t be helped,’ isn’t that right? What a despicable phrase.”

_Keekeekee._

They mused, “But what if it could be helped? What if something could be done? Even though I’ve now become like this, I will never be able to become the way I wanted to be… but something can still be done. There’s still something I can only do once I have taken on this form.”

“And that is?”

I dreaded the answer.

“I can end suffering.”

Then Inari Kaede added,

“At least, I can end my own suffering, anyway. That much is something within my power to do now. It is not within the power of gods to end the collective suffering of this world. After all — like you said yesterday, this is a world which is built on suffering.

“But you were mistaken on one thing, Kaiki-san: for every prey animal snatched up, for every nest destroyed by a logger’s axe, the overall sum of suffering in this world does not remain static. There is not an equalizing exchange for every incident; the misery merely multiplies at every turn. Money does not create happiness; asceticism does not save people from suffering; these merely are methods of diverting suffering, either away from one’s self or unto one’s self. As we go on living we find new ways to carry on with this rising pressure, constantly fleeing from the consequences of our actions. There is but one way to end suffering…”

Uncharacteristically, I shouted,

“Death does not mean an end to suffering!”

It felt to me as if Inari Kaede was unimpressed. So with something approaching a calmer voice, I continued,

“What do you think happens when we die? Just curling up alone in the woods is not an escape from the cycle of pain. Inevitably, someone will realize your absence, and then they’ll stop and ask, ‘where did they go?’ Eventually, someone will find the body. And then someone else will have to tend to that body. Family, friends, rivals and enemies — they all have to live with that loss. In many ways the prospects cut off by an abrupt end, the mere thought of what could have been which runs through the regretful minds of mourners — these things are infinitely more painful than the finite reality in which we live and choose how to live. ”

_Keekeekee,_

_Keekeekakaka._

“You’re absolutely right, Kaiki-san. That is why I choose not to die; I choose instead to have never existed.”

_Impossible._

Yet again, I was speechless.

_You can’t._

But that would have been too simple of an objection.

“This would have been an impossible feat for anybody else… but to one such as me, as I am now, it is a trifle.”

“To have never existed — you really ought as well have said you’d end the world.” I couldn’t help but shake my head.

“The world will go on,” said Inari Kaede. “People will continue living with their misery. It’ll be just like it is now — except, instead of failing to recall my gender, people will simply forget I ever existed at all. It’s better this way.”

“So by cutting a hole into reality where you had previously been, you think you can solve the problem of your dysphoria.”

This gave Inari Kaede pause.

They seemed genuinely surprised.

But when I think about it, it’s almost as if they had wanted somebody — anybody — to come to this conclusion.

“Well, for what it’s worth, I must say I certainly appreciate that you went to the trouble of figuring it out, Kaiki-san.”

You yourself practically told me yesterday, at the bus stop.

With your own voice you told me you had never been able to live honestly.

More than anything else, spelling it out so plainly drew me to this realization.

“Let me tell you a story, Kaiki-san. I’m sure it’s something you’ve probably heard before. Once, there was a seer; a man gifted with great wisdom, as well as the power to precisely foretell the future of even complete strangers. He drew many disciples — he even had the ear of local lords. With his powers the seer did great kindness to others, and in so doing his crowd of supporters grew larger and larger with each passing season.

“Then, one day, while visiting the home of one such devotee, he was invited to bathe. But the seer’s bathwater had been drawn far too hot; it had been near to a boil when it was poured into the bath. The seer plunged his foot into the water, and then he immediately recoiled, yelping in pain. Disrobed, he stumbled out of the bath, clutching his burnt foot. His cries filled the house, and quickly his followers came rushing to his aide… but to their shock, they discovered the seer’s body covered in fur; his teeth sharp and canine. and sprouting from his backside was the puffy tail of a fox. The moment his disciples laid eyes upon his naked body, the seer returned to his true form — a wizened fox — and fled into the woods. Never was the seer seen again.”

Of course I’ve heard this story.

I’d never forget it,

Just as I doubt you ever would either.

“When I read that the first time, I instantly understood what it was implying. The message is clear: you cannot hide from the truth forever. No matter your disguise, no matter the magnitude of your goodness, no matter how hard you strive to fit in and be acceptable — you will be unmasked. That your fox-tail shall be discovered, and you ousted from society, is an inescapable eventuality…

“... And,” they added, “that this is the righteous way of things. Kaiki-san, in this world which seeks factuality, which abides by a code of unbreakable laws, which desires correctness and stamps out falsehood, I am but a fox — a fox to be shooed away, to be caught in a trap, to beg for mercy from strangers who cannot help but soothe their guilty consciences by doing me a kind turn; a fox to die of exposure, starving, alone, and miserable, having never been able to experience that romanticized thing called ‘humanity’.”

What can I say to this child?

You want me to tell them everything’s alright?

The problem with the world is that everything is as it should be.

And nobody cares to challenge this.

Yet again, I could say nothing.

Inari Kaede inhaled, loudly.

I thought for a second that I heard a quiver in their breath.

“What is there to live for in such an existence?”

I couldn’t answer.

“You know what else, Kaiki-san? I didn’t even realize until only recently that I had been trying to live as the seer did. Up until a couple years ago I thought I was normal — I thought I was like everyone else. But I’m not. Everyone else made abundantly clear how different I am.”

It’s a story I’ve heard before.

Many times before.

“Yoshinari Kaede always liked what boys liked. Kaede always did what boys did. Kaede always wore what boys wore — Kaede never wanted to wear skirts. Kaede fought like the boys did, Kaede ran like they did, and Kaede always played like they did. Kaede always watched the same shows as they did, and wanted to be as tough and manly as their heroes, someday. It never once occurred to Yoshinari Kaede to think that they weren’t one of the boys.

“But then along came middle school. Then came the uniforms and the expectations. The rules would not bend; they couldn’t be bent. So Yoshinari Kaede had no choice but to put on a skirt. The others stopped looking at them the same way; nobody interacted with them the same way anymore. And before long, Kaede started to realize why: everything was changing, and so was Kaede. Yoshinari Kaede woke up one day and could no longer look away from what everyone insisted was the truth. Family, friends — they all told Yoshinari Kaede the same thing: ‘You can’t do this because you are a girl.’ Everyone close, everyone who should know better… their words had begun to break down Kaede’s perception. Yoshinari Kaede could no longer get by without beginning to question which was the real truth: the truth which they held, or the truth held by the others.

“So Kaede ran from that question of truth; as often as possible, as far as possible. They didn’t know who to trust anymore. Nobody was right — or maybe, Kaede was wrong? What a hideous thought, that was. ‘What if I’d been wrong the entire time?’ But then how do I explain these feelings? The swelling in my chest, the cramps in my legs — it’s like every moment I’m not distracted, my entire body is trying to crush me into the wrong shape. It hurts… every second I’m awake, it hurts. Why did nobody help me? Why did Mother and Father let me suffer like this? Why didn’t Auntie Shiori do something?”

Inari Kaede, bright as the sun, radiating warmth and freezing the air in my lungs, paused.

Then,

“Kaiki — can you tell me?”

The question.

“Was there ever even a chance I could have fit in? What is Yoshinari Kaede? Do not dare to lie to me — tell me the truth: _What am I?_ ”

I,

I could not say anything in that moment.

Inari Kaede heard my silence, and interpreted it as an answer.

“As I thought — you really are a liar.”

Through the light, my pained eyes could make out how they turned away from me.

“Farewell, Kaiki.”

Even though I am an imperfect person,

Even though, as they say, I’m a liar —

Whatever it was they were going to do,

I would not allow it.

I reached out, half-blind at this point.

The air grew hotter and colder as I grasped closer to Inari Kaede.

And with my hand

I seized their tails.

There were so many that at this point it was impossible to not grab at least one.

They could not react in time.

Grabbing a fox’s tail —

“Ah?!”

— Prevents their escape.

“Life is not something we live at the behest of others,” I said. “Moreover, life is too precious to abandon in the pursuit of divinity. So what if someone tells you something hurtful? You are still you. You are still alive. You weren’t wrong: there is nothing which separates us from the foxes in the woods. And sometimes, a fox can be even more compassionate, more humane, than others of these so-called human beings. Society has no rights to who you are. Who we are is not something set in stone; we are always changing, as people. Saitomi Shiori has changed. The parents who birthed you, they changed too. And you will go on changing as well, for as long as you live. Sometimes, the changes will be as you wish for them to be; at other times, you won’t even realize you have changed. But your identity is yours to decide. Do you understand me, Yoshinari?”

You want to know the truth?

The truth of this entire case.

The fact which this apparition has obscured.

Kaiki Deishū shall now tell you the truth.

 

**“Yoshinari Kaede is a boy.”**


	10. 010

And now: the conclusion, or perhaps the punchline.

Just kidding.

There’s nothing funny about this ending.

In fact, rather than face the reality of this incident’s conclusion, you are welcome to pretend that this case has resolved itself in whatever way might please you.

Indeed, you are free to assume that in unmasking the fox, I successfully undid the apparition which surrounded Yoshinari Kaede.

You are welcome to assume that when I entered into the cave I discovered a still-breathing middle school girl with wavy red hair and dirty running shoes, well over a week after they had last been seen.

You are welcome to assume that I returned the still-living middle schooler to her parents.

You are welcome to assume that an ambulance was called, and that middle schooler was admitted into an emergency room post-haste, where they were treated for dehydration and malnourishment.

But this would all be wishful thinking.

Yoshinari Kaede, whose given name was spelt with the kanji for _“value”_ and _“rice field,”_ is dead.

You cannot expect a teenager would go that long deprived of food and water and live. We were too late.

Once again, in my attempt to do good, I have only made things worse.

I ask that you pay the dead the proper respects, and do not go poking into Yoshinari Kaede’s affairs any longer.

Well, at the very least, the parents wept at their child’s death.

That’s more than can be said for some people I’ve known.

I suppose that’s a sign of how the times have changed.

It’s good to have people who care — people who are willing to change their minds, whether they’ve made mistakes or not.

You might be wondering to yourself whether I sincerely believed in the things I told Inari Kaede. I ask that you kindly remember who it is that claims to have narrated this story, what that man has done, and then ask yourself whether such a man is capable of such goodwill.

Kaiki Deishū is a fraud.

Well, in any case, when asked such a question I would answer that society is a miserable thing, what with our single-minded obsession with factuality. I hope that this tragic story serves as a lesson for you: truth is not necessarily intuitive. You cannot rely on what other people tell you is the truth.

You have to go out and find the truth for yourself;

The truth of the world,

And the truth of who you are. Others lack the perspective required to determine that for you.

Are you happy with that answer? I should hope so.

Now then…

After I returned Yoshinari Kaede to the Yoshinari family, I made haste back to that charmless establishment in which Saitomi had shacked up with me. My work in this town was done, and I would not risk Saitomi’s scheming any further. There was no further business to be conducted here so long as she was around.

Yet, on the heart-shaped bed, I found my luggage neatly packed. Suspecting foul play, ever unable to trust that Saitomi did not bug my luggage, I opened it up and checked every compartment.

It was in the interior liner that I found an envelope. Within it was two hundred thousand yen in paper bills.

Yes, it would seem that in her effort to search my luggage for something, Saitomi misplaced this money. How careless of her.

I’ll admit, I strongly debated taking the money. I could treat it as payment, after all. But in the end, I decided not to.

This is not something that I would do for pay.

I’d prefer to think of this as doing an old friend a favor.

I should mention before we continue, that it seems the moment I undid Inari Kaede, the fox’s spell was lifted and the missing gender information conveniently reappeared. All the missing records were rediscovered, and the strangeness was marked down to clerical error.

I think a few people lost their jobs over it, actually.

Anyway, having wrapped things up, I headed back to the train station.

I sat in the same place where I first met Inari Kaede, and I waited.

And as I waited, I got to thinking.

I suppose in the end Gaen and Saitomi were right. I was the perfect choice for this case: only someone like me could have tricked that kid into loving life for what it is. And as much as I hate children, Yoshinari Kaede’s circumstances were intriguing.

Yes.

I think it made for an interesting story indeed, if I do say so myself.

The train arrived.

Don’t ask me where it was going. Maybe we’ll talk about it someday.

Someplace without foxes, is all I shall dare say.

Having refused to take Saitomi’s money, I failed to make any money in this town. Wherever I went next I would have to work extra hard to cover this loss.

As I sat down, and the train began to move, I noticed on the platform:

There was some boy standing, looking up at my window, waving.

I don’t know who he is, really.

He was wearing a hospital gown.

Seems the kid has a penchant for running away.

Hm.

When I think about that,

The loss was worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now, an afterword:
> 
> There's a lot of things I could talk about with the space here, but unfortunately I am not a very imaginative person. So I will simply remark that, ironically, a lot of this story about holes in understanding and knowledge popped up out of some holes in Monogatari... well, not so much holes in that they are glaring inconsistencies; but rather, simply because there are certain "known unknowns". The biggest one of all was a dismissive remark Kaiki makes while talking with Kanbaru about his feelings for her mother: something along the lines of, "Well, I already had a girlfriend at the time, anyway so..." Perhaps it's just because I'm very fond of Kaiki as a character, but this struck me as a very interesting thing to say. I doubt he just made it up on the spot, but I got to thinking, "what if he did in fact date someone, and he did so for the express purpose of trying to make Gaen jealous? Wouldn't that be ridiculously petty enough to be something Kaiki would do?"
> 
> Well, to my knowledge, that former girlfriend has not yet emerged in the series since the off-season began. That left me ample room for speculation. And so early on I had the idea that it would be really funny if Kaiki's girlfriend were now a tax agent. And from there it was just a matter of thinking about what an interesting situation would be for Kaiki.
> 
> Monogatari enchants me greatly because it's a series where I find myself having given in to the idea that I am as much listening to a story as I am learning about the person telling the story. And to this end Kaiki always felt like the most fascinating character of all. His perspective is so baffling yet somehow sincere in its lack of commitment. By telling you he's probably lying he can get away with being completely honest. And as an author you can also get away with little strange things here and there by claiming, "why, that was simply a lie," or, "he didn't know such and such thing so it doesn't add up correctly." It's so easy to cover yourself with this sort of storytelling.
> 
> The only other thing to say is that, with the initial idea for the scenario, I quickly realized that I was not well-read enough to handle some of the finer details of this story and its characters. But I also wanted to have there be some meaning to it overall rather than just have my favorite character swoop in and save the day. What followed was a process of me relying heavily on close friends' input -- one person in particular and they know who they are -- to steer me away from doing something offensively stupid in my ignorance. Reading about topical issues also helps, too.
> 
> Also, I have to say, I was genuinely worried that all my work trying to affect Kaiki would just give way into mediocre parroting. I'm shocked I didn't totally lose the character after the first 3 chapters.
> 
> And lastly, I'm really amazed by some of the stuff I've heard back on this. I had a truly incredible amount of fun writing it. Speaking as a self-proclaimed writer, it genuinely reminded me of why I enjoy doing what I do.
> 
> If for some reason you decide you want to follow my shenanigans you can follow me on twitter, @FriendStaffen . Other than that, I'm sure I'll be coaxed into writing some more Monogatari fanfiction again, in the future.
> 
> Thank you for reading.


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